Rift
by Reign of Rayne
Summary: After an eight-year war with Aizen, Urahara tries to send Ichigo back in time with one of his inventions. However, things don't go as planned. No serious pairings, takes place during Edolas Arc in Fairy Tail. ON HOLD.
1. Chapter 1

_Here there be too many stories for me to keep track of. Like my story _Rewind_, this won't be updated again probably until I finish my other Bleach story. I just wanted to see what the reaction to this would be. The first part is Ichigo before he goes through Urahara's portal, and the Fairy Tail bit starts a little more than halfway down. The beginning is the same as _Rewind's_._

_Background:_

_This takes place after the Oracion Seis arc in Fairy Tail, and the Ichigo in the story is the one from my fic _Rewind_ because I like him (essentially, post-Winter-War Ichigo). It starts the same way as _Rewind_, but things don't go as planned. Instead of in the past, Ichigo ends up in . . . well, you know._

_Yes, Ichigo will be incredibly strong in this story. No, this will not be making the fight scenes boring and eventually (when the later chapters come), you'll see why._

_Ichigo's sword spirits will be distinguished like this: his Quincy powers are "Old Man Zangetsu" and his hollow/Shinigami powers are "Hollow Zangetsu". However, Ichigo refers to Hollow Zangetsu as just "Zangetsu" when he's thinking._

_**"Hollow Zangetsu in Ichigo's mind."**_

_"Old Man Zangetsu in Ichigo's mind."_

_Ichigo in his own mind._

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or Bleach _**_(and this carries throughout the entire story)_

* * *

Chapter 1

Six months. Six long months since the monster that was Aizen fell to my blade.

Six months that felt like six years but couldn't come close to what the eight years of the war against Aizen felt like. Those were a constant, undeniable and inescapable Hell. If Soul Society hadn't managed to seal off the World of the Living from the spiritual realms almost entirely, it probably would've been destroyed.

That didn't stop my family and my friends from being killed in Soul Society. Aizen, the bastard, targeted my weaknesses first. My dad— my dad managed to save Karin and Yuzu, and Orihime and Uryū and Chad escaped to the Seireitei, but Karakura Town was damn hear obliterated when it was supposed to be safe in Soul Society.

Now that I think about it, that's probably how Aizen made his King's Key. I hadn't been paying much attention at the time, because I was unconscious.

After Mugetsu hadn't been enough to stop Aizen from mutating yet again (he called it "evolving"; I called it "horrifying"), the self-proclaimed traitor waged war on all of Soul Society, destroying Karakura while I struggled to retain what little power I had left.

Then Urahara Kisuke, somehow, using methods I'd never understand, got the Gotei Thirteen Lieutenants and Captains to pour their Reiatsu into a bladeless sword, which, when Rukia stabbed me with it, somehow restored my powers. Apparently their Reiatsu made up the blade. Really, I was a little bit preoccupied to really ask.

The theme of "getting stabbed to get stronger" was really not something I was fond of.

Even then, I couldn't get strong enough in time to stop Aizen from going to the Soul King Palace. The Zero Division kicked him out, of course, because the traitor hadn't been expecting them to be as powerful as they were. In the time Aizen took to recover, the Zero Division took Renji, Rukia, (for some reason) Byakuya, and me in.

I still remembered when they broke Tensa Zangetsu. I'd been devastated (and angry until they explained that it wasn't my _real_ sword), but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I discovered my heritage. My dad . . . the smile on his face when I told him thanks, when I smiled at him, is still the first image to come to mind when I think of him.

The stupid idiot sacrificed himself so that I could get a little more training in at the Soul King Palace, and I only talked to him in his dying moments, but even then my resolve to kill Aizen had hardened into tempered steel.

With new resolve and a new alliance with my inner hollow (who was actually my Shinigami abilities, but that was irrelevant) and my Quincy powers, I went after Aizen with a vengeance.

Half the Soul King Palace was torn to shreds with all the power that was released. I'm not sure what happened to the Zero Division; one second we were fighting, the next I was back in Soul Society with a very freaky-looking Aizen and a confused Byakuya (though he didn't show it), Renji, and Rukia.

Later, Kisuke told me that the Spirit King may have interfered, but I have my doubts.

Either way, it took eight years of fighting in Soul Society and Hueco Mundo to bring Aizen down. Uryū went first, then Orihime, then Chad. They all died in the end, even Rukia when she saw Captain Ukitake get caught by his sickness at the worst possible moment.

Her bankai was incredible for the little time she was able to use it.

At some point during the confusion, when I was around seventeen or eighteen, I felt myself die. Not my Shinigami self, but my human body. Whatever had been sustaining it in the world of the living had stopped. It had been the strangest feeling, to know that I was dead. For once, I was actually a Shinigami, not a human. My aging slowed practically to a stop after that, making me look practically eighteen for the rest of the war and the six months after. If I tried, I could probably pass off as sixteen, or even fifteen, but that would require erasing a _lot_ of expression from my eyes, things that were communicated without words that naturally shaped the way other people estimated your age.

Then the war took over and the novelty of dying faded away, taking everything else about the World of the Living along with it.

Aizen, in the final year of war—he knew he was losing, but didn't care—hunted Orihime and Uryū in Soul Society. Somehow, he found them.

He destroyed their souls right in front of me.

I snapped, then, going on a rampage. I don't remember much; according to Kisuke, I'd hollowfied completely and decimated Aizen's forces, making the man himself retreat.

All I knew was that Chad's soul was still out there somewhere. It was almost fitting that he was the only one of my friends to apparently survive the Winter War. Solid, steady Chad.

Our close bond only made it hurt more.

So, after the war was over—and I managed to gather the scattered remains of the Gotei Thirteen and get them in some semblance of order—I searched for Chad whenever possible, exploring as much of the Rukongai as I could.

One of these days, I vowed, I would find him. I promised I would.

* * *

I was about to go on another search for Chad, one of hundreds if not more that all amounted to the same failure (dammit Chad I have to find you, I _need _you), when Kisuke burst into the room looking like the doors of Hell were opening behind him.

Kisuke. I'd been on a first-name basis with him since the second month of the war, back when we still had hope. Actually, I guess we had hope the whole time; that's why we kept on fighting.

We. The all-encompassing we. The "forces united against Aizen" we.

Now it was just Kisuke and I. There was no more "we". It was just us. The survivors.

Everyone called us the heroes of the Winter War, the two men who beat Aizen.

We didn't beat Aizen.

Aizen lost, sure, but we didn't beat him.

Nobody won the Winter War. There were no victors. Nobody "beat" anyone. Aizen. Just. Lost. Kisuke and I just happened to be the two strongest survivors; I knew there were other wrecked Shinigami out there, doomed to be haunted by the Winter War for the rest of their days. Even as I clamped down on my emotions to stop from going insane, I felt bad about not being able to help them. Kisuke shut himself away even more than I did, something that didn't surprise me.

So when Kisuke opened his mouth for the first time in six months (he'd sworn an oath after Yoruichi died in a battle; the Flash Goddess had actually managed to rip one of Aizen's arms off before she was gone for good), I knew something was up.

He stopped, panting, in front of my desk, not seeming to notice that his sudden appearance had nearly caused me to draw Zangetsu out of sheer reflex.

"I did it."

Those three words were like a shot of fire into my veins. I knew what Kisuke was talking about; he'd shown me the plans, and though I had tried to be supportive, in the back of my mind I had always believed that Kisuke was doomed to failure.

A time machine, Kisuke? I had asked, so tired and weary the sheer ridiculousness of the idea hadn't hit me, wouldn't hit me until two months later when Kisuke shut himself inside the remains of the twelfth division and wouldn't come out for anything.

I'd thought he was dead, but I was so damned busy trying to stop the survivors from killing each other that I never checked anything but his spiritual pressure.

I did that. Every day. Sometimes every hour. Because if Kisuke was gone, there was no way in hell I was sticking around for long, not if I couldn't find Chad, not if everyone I cared about was gone—

Yes, he had replied, though he had done so through the expression on his face. At that point, he didn't speak. I hadn't expected him to speak ever again. Not after Yoruichi was ripped apart in front of him—

No. I can't think about that. Can't think about everyone I didn't protect. I can't, I can't, I can't, I _won't_.

"What—?" I started, running a hand through my neck-length hair in a nervous gesture I'd picked up at some point in the past few nerve-wracking months. Some of the bangs hung between and over my eyes, but they didn't bother me. I'd gotten used to them, because there was no way I was going to take a break just to get a damn haircut.

I didn't even know if it was still possible to _get_ a haircut; the Seireitei was in shambles, even after all the time I'd been spending trying to get the place back in order.

The fact that half the Rukongai had been destroyed during the fighting wasn't helping.

But Kisuke didn't let me finish. He grabbed my arm in a grip that was surprisingly strong and yanked me out of my seat. We were out the door before I even registered that his hand was holding my wrist, and by the time the thought to shake him off crossed my mind Kisuke was already flash-stepping across rooftops towards where the Twelfth Division's labs were. Well, the remaining labs. Most of them were just smoking ruins now, and thanks to Mayuri no one wanted to step foot in any place that hadn't been declared absolutely nontoxic.

I let Kisuke pull me; I was easily stronger than him, had been for years, because I'd _needed_ to be. Now he was desperate to show me _his_ strength, and so I let him drag me along, even though it felt as though my arm was going to be pulled from its socket.

The switch from sunlight to artificial light was so sudden that I didn't notice until Kisuke finally stopped, panting slightly, in a large room. I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust, until I recognized the space as Kisuke's lab.

"There," Kisuke whispered, his voice shaky from disuse. I followed his finger and saw what looked like a giant rectangle covered in shockingly white pages of paper. However, as Kisuke strode forward—the way he was suddenly confident made my chest ache because he was so close to _normal_ it hurt—black suddenly striped across the pages, until the rectangle was so densely covered in writing it blended in with the wall behind it.

"Kisuke . . ." I started, not sure what to say. What could I say? The only friend I had left said he'd built a goddamn _time machine_, which could reverse everything—

_Yuzu screamed my name, her voice cracking as Aizen held her by the throat, his body so grotesque it hurt to look at, and blood was running everywhere and where the hell was Karin I couldn't see her and there was so much blood—_

"Ichigo?"

Kisuke's voice snapped me out of the flashback, and I realized I'd been gripping the handle of Zangetsu; at least, the blade at my waist. The other Zangetsu was slung over my back, wrapped in white, bandage-like material that always appeared, seemingly out of thin air, when I wasn't using the blade.

I used the blade too much.

Thinking of how I'd gotten the dual Zangetsus brought up painful memories of the battle at the Soul King Palace and I forced those images back into the box in my mind, slamming the lid and locking it. I knew it wasn't healthy, but I couldn't bring myself to give a damn. Mental health could come later, when all of Soul Society wasn't going to shit.

But, if Kisuke had actually succeeded . . .

"I'm okay," I managed, wincing as my voice actually cracked. Kisuke was the only person who knew just how much strain I was under, and he was the only person to whom I actually showed weakness. With everyone else, I plastered on a cool, emotionless mask.

Either that, or I terrified the hell out of them. Either one was preferable to the way my throat was clenching tightly, strangling my breathing and making me gasp slightly.

After thirty seconds of Kisuke putting his hand on my shoulder – letting me know he was there and that I was safe (because how many sleepless nights had I spent in Hueco Mundo trying to stop Aizen's armies from slaughtering innocent Shinigami only to realize they were all dead anyway?) – I finally calmed down enough to resume my mask.

"Thanks, Kisuke," I muttered, taking my hand off the jet-black trench knife at my waist.

"Ichigo."

I glanced up, realizing that Kisuke wasn't interested in any more comfort. His eyes were hard. I knew instinctively what he was going to ask, and I felt a flood of different emotions surge through me. In an instant, I'd clamped down on them and shoved them back into that box, allowing me to think clearly.

"I'll do it, Kisuke. I'll do whatever I have to do to make sure Aizen—to make sure that _this_ never happens."

Kisuke grinned at me; it was a pale imitation of his former smirk, but it was better than the empty look he'd carried before. "Good. Because I'm not strong enough to go through there."

I blinked. "You're not coming?"

When Kisuke replied, he was dead serious. "If I went through there, Ichigo, I'd get ripped apart. The portal is designed to go back in time; think of it as wading through the restrictive current in the Dangai. It's designed to tear you apart."

"You wouldn't send me in there if it was going to kill me."

"You're strong enough where that won't happen," Kisuke affirmed, glancing back at his creation as if to make sure that it was still there, that he wasn't dreaming. It pained me to see him like this, but when he turned back to me there was a steely glint of determination in his eyes. "If you go through at full power, you should come out the other side with your body and powers intact."

"Should?"

That small, broken smile returned. "No promises, Ichigo."

I glanced back at the rectangle affixed to the far wall. If Kisuke couldn't make it, then no one else could.

Not even Chad.

I frowned pensively, running through hundreds of scenarios in my mind. If I needed to be at full power, then I would need to undo the seal I'd placed on myself after the war. It was similar to a Gentei Reiin, and its power was held in the shape of a black crescent moon, about the side of an eye, over my heart. I could release it without words; I'd practiced until I could. There was no telling if another Aizen could appear, and I was not going to be caught unprepared.

I smiled wryly, looking up at the time portal (the thought widened my smile slightly). Apparently all the training I'd been doing in the past months was actually going to pay off a lot sooner than I was expecting.

"Give me a day, Kisuke," I said, turning to face my old friend. "I need that long to . . ." I couldn't finish, but Kisuke knew what I meant.

If I wasn't prepared to see everyone alive again—because I trusted that Kisuke's invention would work (it had to)—every emotion in that box would come pouring out and I wouldn't even be able to say my own damn name without wanting to scream.

"Meet me here in twenty-four hours," Kisuke said, and we clasped hands. There was so much I wanted to say, but I summed it up in one word.

"Thanks."

There was nothing else to say. Kisuke nodded, and I went out of the lab, using Shunpo simply to stretch my muscles. I kept going, past the broken walls of the Seireitei—I'd wanted to get those fixed, eventually, just so they could go back to the Soul King's dimension, if it wasn't still sealed off—past the known districts of the Rukongai, moving at speeds that not even Yoruichi could match because I blended Shunpo and Sonido and it made the world just _blur_.

The speed was intoxicating, but eventually I stopped in a clearing, deep in a stretch of woods, one of the few that hadn't been leveled during my final battle with Aizen.

I remembered thinking after the final battle, as the dust slowly cleared from the air, that I'd probably destroyed Soul Society.

I remembered not caring.

The clearing was peaceful, and the sun cast shifting shadows through the branches of the trees at the edges. Wildflowers bloomed in the grasses, adding splashes of color to the dominant greenery. Carefully, I sat in the middle of the space, lying my large Khyber knife and trench knife—my Zangetsus—across my lap and taking a deep breath. The breeze played across my bare skin, exposed because my Shihakushō was ripped up to the shoulders and I'd never bothered to get a different look. It exposed the tattoos going across my forearms, black markings that came with my Shikai. Another x-shaped band stretched across my chest, also slightly visible.

Taking another deep breath, I closed my eyes and breathed, focusing my energy on the swords across my lap and allowing my Reiatsu to flow into them, until I left Soul Society behind.

I blinked, taking in the cloudy sky from my position on the side of a blue skyscraper.

**"HA!"**

A white version of Zangetsu—the large Khyber blade—stopped millimeters from my neck, held in place by the black and white guard that wrapped around my neck, another souvenir of my Shikai release.

I didn't react, instead turning to face the wielder of the blade with a raised eyebrow and a slight frown. This was followed closely by a heavily sarcastic, "_really_?"

A white copy of me, identical in every single way except color, withdrew his sword and sheathed it across his back, allowing the blade to be held there by the white chain that was woven into his white Shihakushō, nearly invisible, exactly like the one in mine except that mine was black.

**"C'mon, King," **Zangetsu drawled, grinning. **"This is the first time you've been here in weeks!"**

"Not to mention that you blocked us from communicating with you," another, deeper baritone added. I turned slightly and saw the manifestation of my Quincy abilities—the _other_ Zangetsu—standing on a flagpole a few meters away. I didn't miss the reproach in his voice.

"I'm sorry about that," I said quietly. "I just . . . needed some time to think."

Zangetsu snorted. **"Right. You _got_ yer time, King. You gotta face facts eventually."**

"He is correct," Old Man Zangetsu concurred. I blinked.

"Sorry."

**"Che. Idiot."**

Zangetsu didn't look particularly offended; we'd had this weird kind of friendship (it ran so much deeper than that, but I couldn't describe it any other way) during the war, and it had only solidified as the truth about my abilities was revealed. Now, we were practically the same being.

If you didn't count that he was technically a hollow and that he had somewhat homicidal tendencies, of course.

"You heard everything that Kisuke said, right?" I asked, taking a seat on the skyscraper. I missed the sun in my inner world, but frankly it was lucky for me that it wasn't pouring. It had taken me a solid two months of meditation just to feel calm again to the point where I could speak with someone without feeling my emotions come pouring to the surface.

"Of course," Old Man Zangetsu said, staring down at me. "You may have blocked us from your mind, but we can still hear and see through you."

Zangetsu waved a hand in his other's direction as he lay down on the building's surface, not bothering to say anything out loud.

I took a deep breath, for once wondering why I'd shut myself away from these two. They were _me_, right? They were pieces of my soul.

Then again, I hadn't really been thinking rationally after I defeated Aizen.

In the distance, thunder rumbled dangerously. Zangetsu, who had been lying down on the building with his eyes closed for all of five seconds, cracked a single gold and black eye open to stare at me.

**"Cut it out, King," **he growled. **"Yer not getting' anywhere, thinking like that."**

"I know." I took a deep breath and then sighed, leaning back and imitating the position of my inner-hollow-turned-Shinigami-powers. Old Man Zangetsu, the embodiment of my Quincy powers, stood on his pole, staring down at me with an unreadable expression. I'd long since given up trying to figure out why he enjoyed doing the whole "standing on poles" thing.

There were bigger things to worry about.

There was another rumble of thunder, followed by a grumble from Zangetsu. **"King . . ."**

Despite the fact that we were supposed to be partners, he insisted on that title. Just like Old Man Zangetsu's obsession with standing on poles, Zangetsu wanted to stick with his titles.

"We will help you, Ichigo," Old Man Zangetsu said, his deep voice carrying to me easily. "You know that we will always stand by your side, no matter what."

I grinned tiredly, the expression feeling strange on my face after so long.

* * *

Feeling strangely calm, I headed back towards Kisuke's lab, Zangetsu slung over my back and sheathed at my waist. Theoretically, I could seal the blade, but during the war that had been a moot point even as I learned all I could about Reiatsu control to try and get an edge on Aizen only to find that control didn't do me any damn favors when my allies were massacred in front of me.

So I kept Zangetsu in Shikai.

Kisuke was already there, also strangely calm.

"Did you find him?" He asked quietly, knowing without needing to be told that I'd searched for Chad for almost the entire previous night after getting out of my inner world.

"No," I replied, taking a deep breath. "But . . . I'll fix this." My eyes met Kisuke's, and if he was surprised at the fact that they were glowing with blue resolve, he didn't show it. "Chad will never be lost in the first place."

Kisuke nodded, having made peace with what he was about to do a long time ago. He bustled around the room, activating dormant Kidō spells and making the previously still writing on the rectangular gate begin to shift and flicker with energy while he told me what I needed to do. I paid attention carefully, until Kisuke stopped in front of me.

"One shot, Ichigo," he warned.

"That's all I need."

We shook hands for the final time. I wasn't going to get this bond with Kisuke back, and I knew that. But it was something both of us were willing to sacrifice if it meant that others could be spared the same pain.

"Thank you for everything, Kisuke," I said. I meant _everything_; the Shattered Shaft, the training, the advice, everything that Kisuke had ever done for me. He smiled, genuinely. He still felt guilty about that, I knew, but I was determined to let him know that I was grateful for it, happy that I could protect everyone. Or at least try to.

"It was my pleasure, Ichigo."

And then we separated, everything we needed to say resolved in those few brief seconds. Kisuke signaled me from behind a barrier, and I took that as the sign to let my power loose. After making sure that Zangetsu and Old Man Zangetsu were ready, I released the seal on my power. New energy surged through my veins, but I kept a tight grip on it, shaping it. Without a word, I entered bankai, feeling the oversized Khyber knife that I'd drawn shift into a black daitō with a chain hanging off the hilt and a manji as the guard. The trench knife had seemingly disappeared, but I could feel it, armor beneath my Shihakushō, stronger than any Blut Vene.

Still my power grew, and winds whipped through the lab, kicking up dust and debris that spun in circles around me. I ignored that, allowing the chain of Tensa Zangetsu to wrap around my right arm, going up to the shoulder, stopping right at the ripped portion of my Shinigami robe as by powers merged together completely. The remaining chain segments hung down, and the manji that had made up the guard of Tensa Zangetsu expanded as the metal around Tensa Zangetsu's hilt wrapped around my hand in a kind of metal glove, going to just past my wrist.

Next came the hardest part, the transformation that had taken me two years to master to the point where it didn't almost kill me. It was the only state that allowed me to kill Aizen, and that was after nearly five years of constant training to be able to use it again after having it nearly kill me the first time. All that training, just so it wouldn't drain me of my powers completely.

There was a surge of black Reiatsu around me—_my_ Reiatsu—and Tensa Zangetsu melted entirely, becoming black, bandage-like material that wrapped around my chest and arm that slowly lightened to become gray, leaving my left arm bare save the black markings that wound around it, mimicking the pitch dark Reiatsu that was now leaking from my right arm. Without needing to look I knew that my hair had turned jet-black, and my eyes a bloody crimson. It had taken more effort than I cared to admit to stop my hair from growing every time I entered the Mugetsu state. I felt the gray material cover the lower half of my face, could feel it against my skin, and I knew it was finished.

Carefully, I stopped the Reiatsu from leaking from my right arm and focused it inward, until my power was a tightly maintained maelstrom inside of me. In this state, even I could barely control my power.

"Kisuke," I growled, clenching my hands into fists as the winds from my transformations faded, "now would be a great time."

There was a flash of light in the portal; without pausing, I leapt into it, going so fast that Urahara Kisuke, one of the most respected men I'd ever known, couldn't track me.

The tunnel was dark, suffocating. My power exploded out of me in a protective barrier as shadows I could barely comprehend reached for me, trying to drag me into an endless abyss. Shrieking noises echoed in the dark but I ignored them, sprinting as fast as possible without using Shunpo or Sonido. Both Zangetsus were fused with me, and I could feel their wordless and selfless support and I ran, focused on a dim light at the end. I remembered Kisuke's instructions: focus on a certain point and go there. Remember that, once you get out, you're going to be drained for a few hours, so try not to go somewhere where you might not get killed immediately.

He'd almost smiled after saying that.

And then I was reaching for the light—I took the briefest of seconds to reflect on the irony of the idea—there was flash, a burning heat that too my breath away, and then an all-consuming darkness that trapped me so completely I was unconscious before I even knew what happened.

* * *

Lucy Heartfilia, celestial mage and—thanks to a certain dragon slayer—a wizard of Fairy Tail, the strongest guild in the kingdom of Fiore, sighed.

Deeply.

She'd just taken her third job in five days in a last-ditch attempt to pay her rent. Luckily, it had succeeded, and Lucy still had money left over, but the job had been extremely tiring. She smiled slightly to herself, thinking that she'd gotten a lot stronger lately and enjoying the feeling of the evening breeze playing off the river and flowing through her hair. The day at the guild had been exhausting, with Natsu and Gray getting into a fight that had nearly destroyed the bar, right up until the rest of the guild got involved. Somehow, the fight had ended without anyone or anything getting hurt or destroyed, which Lucy was thankful for. The celestial mage had found that hanging near the bar was typically the safest place to be, and since Wendy usually sat there too no one wanted to throw anything over there.

At least Gajeel hadn't gotten involved, or things could've gotten ugly. That guy didn't know the meaning of the word "moderation". Frankly, neither did Natsu. Or Gray. Or Erza. Or anyone in Fairy Tail, for that matter.

But now, she could go home, relax, and pray that Natsu and Happy didn't decide to randomly crash at her house. If they did, the blonde vowed, she was going to Lucy Kick them into next week.

The breeze that Lucy was enjoying suddenly died, making Lucy stop and look around. She was still a little ways from her apartment, and night was rapidly approaching. Already, the colors of the sunset had faded into dusk, and the stars were out. The streetlight above Lucy shone brightly, obscuring most of the encroaching night sky, but Lucy didn't mind.

Until she realized that most of the light was coming from her left, not from above.

"What the heck?"

Quickly, Lucy reached for her keys, in case there was something out there that was a threat. However, the light soon faded. Blinking the afterimage out of her eyes, Lucy took a few cautious steps forward, holding her breath and looking into the alley.

"Hello?" She called hesitantly, trusting that she would be able to react in time if there was a threat. She wasn't a mage of Fairy Tail for nothing.

There was nothing but silence, so Lucy took another few steps.

She tripped.

With a noise that was less than feminine, Lucy fell to the ground, scraping her elbows and knees in the process. Letting loose a small yelp, she hurriedly scurried back, away from the darker shadow in front of her, barely distinguishable from the darkness around it.

When the lump of shadow didn't move, Lucy began breathing again. Then, slowly, she inched forward on hands and knees. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the alley, she realized that the shape had orange on it. Another second passed, and Lucy recognized it as orange hair, stretching down to the stranger's neck in messy spikes and strands.

"H—hello?" Lucy repeated, stretching out a hand tentatively.

She was too surprised to scream when a hand suddenly shot out, grabbed her wrist, and flipped her over. When the spots cleared from Lucy's vision, she realized that the stranger had a hand over her mouth and was kneeling on top of her, holding her down.

Desperately, Lucy tried to shout for help, but the hand over her mouth prevented her from doing so.

She could see the stranger's face, and she was helpless to stop herself from thinking that he was pretty attractive. Even in the dim light she could see his amber eyes and the determined slant to his features and the way that his lips parted—

_Focus, Lucy!_ She reminded herself. Unfortunately, she couldn't find any way out. _Tricked and robbed_, she thought bitterly. No real Fairy Tail mage would get mugged; they were too good for that. She couldn't even reach her keys!

Then the stranger blinked, and the emptiness that Lucy had noticed in his eyes was suddenly filled with vibrancy.

Two seconds later, the stranger was standing, holding Lucy against the wall and keeping a hand over her mouth. Lucy could feel how rough and calloused his palm was, and she wondered if biting him would actually do anything.

However, despite the situation, Lucy noticed that the stranger wasn't being rough with her, the only thought that stopped her from summoning a spirit. Even while picking her up his hands were gentle and never strayed, which belied the tense set to his broad shoulders. He was wearing strange clothes, Lucy noted. A black t-shirt that was ripped up to the shoulders, exposing strange x-shaped tattoos that wrapped around both of his forearms, along with black markings on the backs of his hands that went from his wrist to each of his knuckles. He was also wearing black cargo pants, topped with black shoes and a black belt that had a strange, white, skull-like design on the buckle.

He seemed to like the color black, Lucy noted dryly.

The strange boy shifted again, and the small amount of light that filtered into the alley from the nearby streetlight hit the necklace he wore; it was a strange, thick black metal that wrapped twice around his throat, with the outer edges coated in white. It was a strange piece of jewelry, one that confused Lucy. If this guy was a thief, why did he own something like that?

Finally, the boy spoke, looking back at Lucy with something approaching urgency in his eyes.

"Promise you won't scream, and I'll take my hand off, okay?"

_He has a nice voice_, Lucy noted. Nevertheless, she nodded. Flashing her a small, thankful grin, the stranger removed his hand.

"HELP! I'M BEING—!"

The hand was back before Lucy could get out another word, and hostility had slammed down onto the stranger's expression. Lucy's hand twitched for her keys, but she was determined to find out more about this guy before she beat him up.

"I told you _not_ to do that," he said softly. Then he sighed. "Okay, this isn't what I thought would happen." His gaze wandered for a moment before returning to Lucy's brown eyes. "Look, I'm just trying not to cause a big scene. A friend of mine was practicing with a . . . transport technique, and things went wrong." Weirdly, the boy paused after that, almost like he was thinking over and agreeing with his own words. "Yeah. Anyway, can you tell me where I am?"

Lucy wasn't sure if she believed this guy. He barely looked eighteen, but there was something in the way that he spoke that convinced Lucy he was telling the truth. It wasn't the first time Lucy had heard of a teleportation magic going wrong, and it could knock out the person who went through with it.

"Are you going to shout this time?"

Lucy shook her head, and breathed in relief when the stranger took his hand off again. He regarded her warily, almost like he expected her to shout again. When she didn't, the boy visibly relaxed.

"So, where am I?"

"You're in Magnolia."

"Magnolia . . ." the boy repeated slowly, as if he'd never heard the name before. "What country?"

Lucy tried to hide her surprise. Was his friend so powerful that he was capable of sending people to different _countries_? If so, that could explain why this boy reacted in the way that he did; maybe he was used to fighting if he grew up in a different place.

"Um, Fiore."

Something unidentifiable clouded the boy's features, and Lucy was further confused by the next words he uttered.

"Dammit, Kisuke. I thought you were _kidding_ when you said different dimensions!"

"Who's Kisuke?" Lucy inquired, feeling emboldened by how the boy didn't seem to be dangerous anymore. He glanced up, distracted.

"An old friend."

"Was he the one who used magic to teleport you here?"

"Mag—uh, yeah. He's pretty insane."

"Pretty strong, if he teleported you here from another country," Lucy commented. The boy grinned wryly.

"Yeah. He—um, the teleportation thing was last second. I didn't know where I was going to end up."

"Really? How did that work?" Now that Lucy's curiosity had been piqued, she wanted to know more. The boy coughed lightly.

"Is there somewhere we could talk about this that's not a dark alley?" The boy suddenly asked. Lucy jumped.

"Oh! Wow, I forgot we were in an alley." She hesitated, and the boy noticed. He smirked.

"No, it's my fault for keeping you here. Anyway, I forgot to tell you my name." He held out his hand, his other one planted firmly in his pocket. "It's Ichigo Kurosaki. Nice to meet you . . . and I'm sorry about earlier."

"Lucy Heartfilia," Lucy replied. "Of Fairy Tail, and no problem about earlier."

The boy raised an eyebrow at the words "Fairy Tail".

"So, about a place that's not creepy?" He prodded gently.

"Right! I have an apartment." Without thinking, Lucy grabbed the boy's arm and pulled. He followed, but not before Lucy felt how muscular his arm was. It was like dragging another Natsu, albeit taller and considerably better tempered.

A few minutes later, Lucy found herself offering a seat in her apartment to Ichigo, who turned out to be a fair bit taller than she was. The markings on his arms and hands were definitely tattoos, and in the better lighting Lucy saw that his hair was shockingly orange, not the muted color that the darkness had led Lucy to expect.

And he looked strong. Dangerous, too. It was something in the way the guy moved, Lucy realized. He was too silent when he walked and there was an underlying current of lethality in every single motion he made. If the unchanging expression on his face—a scowl that matched Gray's when he went up against Natsu—was anything to go by, Ichigo was doing it completely subconsciously.

So Lucy was nearly fell over from shock when Ichigo announced that he didn't really know that much about magic. Or fighting with magic.

"Wha—_what_?! Your friend teleported you all the way here and you don't know _anything_ about magic?"

Ichigo grinned slightly. "Well, y'see, I practice . . . sword magic." He glanced down at himself, absently tracing the markings on his arms. "And . . . I lost my sword. That's pretty much the only magic I paid attention to. Where I grew up, magic wasn't really a big deal; everyone fought with hands and fists and regular swords." He paused. "I don't suppose you can explain everything to me?"

Lucy groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. Running into a (pretty attractive) boy on the way home was not on her to-do list for the night, and it didn't help that the boy was more clueless about Fiore than anyone Lucy had ever met.

Ever.

"Okay," she sighed, standing up from her seat and retreating into her room, searching for a magic board and pen that would help her to explain things.

Lucy didn't understand why Ichigo flinched slightly upon sighting the artistic tools in her hands, and she was soon too distracted with explaining the magical world to ask about it.

Ichigo, though oblivious, turned out to be an incredible listener. He asked questions at all the right times, clarifying some things and adding to others.

By the time Lucy finished explaining things to the best of her ability—that included guilds, the government of Fiore, the different types of magic, how guilds worked, the money in Fiore, and laws—the moon was high in the sky. Ichigo looked fascinated, though the entire time he had rarely displayed any emotion, besides a slight menace entering his expression at the mention of the Dark Guilds. He also prodded Lucy to talk about her guild, perhaps sensing that she really enjoyed it.

"Thank you," he eventually said, letting Lucy catch her breath. He looked thoughtful. "I guess I was lucky, running into you."

Then he was standing, making to head out the door. At the same time, he tossed back around two hundred Jewel that Lucy didn't even want to ask the origin of.

"Where are you going?" She demanded, getting up as well, drawing supplies forgotten. He glanced back, one eyebrow shooting up.

"I'm leaving. I don't want to impose on you, so I figured I'd find my own way around."

Mentally berating herself for how reckless she was being, Lucy strode in front of the surprised boy and stood in front of the door, arms crossed.

"Oh no, Ichigo. I did _not_ just find you unconscious in an alley, teach you everything I know about everything, only to have you walk out!"

"But—"

"Nope! You're staying here until we figure something out!"

For the first time, Ichigo seemed completely speechless. Lucy grinned smugly to herself, happy that she'd finally caught the seemingly stoic boy off-guard.

"Now, I don't have a thing against tattoos," Lucy stated, brandishing her own guild mark, which she had already explained to Ichigo, "but the ones on your arms are going to draw a _lot_ of attention around here."

"So?"

Lucy blinked. As Ichigo had crossed his arms, the almost invisible pattern on his shirt had become visible. It was a black outline of some kind of strap, wrapping around his right shoulder in a loop that probably went across his front and then up his back, joining at the shoulder. It was kind of cool, but Lucy quickly dragged herself back to the moment.

"Luckily for you, I happen to have the perfect thing for you!"

Thirty seconds later, Ichigo held a small pile of cloth in one hand, confused. It was a hooded, zip-up black sweatshirt with a silver zipper and a thin white fur lining on the inside. Ichigo felt it, somewhat surprised by how soft and comfortable it felt.

"Isn't this a men's size?" He wondered aloud.

"I liked it!" Lucy retorted, defending her choice. It had been an impulse buy, and her feminine charms had actually worked for once, knocking the price down to nearly half.

Therefore, Lucy got a sweatshirt.

And since she was a wonderful person and Ichigo looked in need, she handed off the sweatshirt to a thoroughly confused Ichigo.

"I can't take this," he said automatically.

"I don't care," Lucy replied. "You're taking it, and that's final. You're also sleeping here, got it?"

"But—"

"We've been over this!"

Ichigo, realizing that Lucy would not be swayed, sighed and slipped on the sweatshirt. It felt good against his skin, and it was thin and light enough to work perfectly in combat. He didn't zip it, but he did shove his hands into the pockets.

"I have to take another job tomorrow at the guild," Lucy stated, "which means I'm going to bed in a few minutes. I'll set up the couch for you in the meantime, okay? Great," she added, before Ichigo could say anything.

* * *

Lucy had fallen asleep an hour ago, but I stayed awake. The information I had gained in the past few hours was staggering, but I was able to file through it easily.

Kisuke's invention had gone wrong, landing me in a place called Earthland. Specifically, I was in the town of Magnolia in the land of Fiore, home to the famous guild of Fairy Tail, which according to Lucy was the strongest guild in existence.

I had no way home. That much was clear. And I had no idea how my Shinigami abilities would carry over to this world where magic was power instead of Reiryoku.

Not to mention my damn clothes. The tattoos from my shikai carried over, but everything else—like my Shihakushō—was gone, replaced by my new t-shirt and pants. I had spent a solid ten minutes in front of the mirror, dissecting my appearance. However, the strange thing was that I could still _feel _my Reiatsu. I was suppressing it, but it's like some of my spirit energy was woven into the clothes I was wearing. I could even feel it seeping into the sweatshirt, making it a part of my power.

Was it like my bankai coat?

And where was—

**_"Hey, King!"_**

Never mind. I found Zangetsu.

_"We apologize for taking so long. Your power was still recovering."_

_So I'm at full strength?_

_"Yes. It appears as though our power will blend with the magic of this world seamlessly. There shouldn't be any problems. Even your seal is intact."_

**_"Which means we can kick ass!"_**

_Be quiet, Zangetsu. I don't need a headache._

I paused thinking for a second, momentary stopping the conversation with my two Zanpakutō spirits. If my power was here . . .

_Hey, you guys, where's my sword?_

_"It is still with you. You simply need to summon it."_

**_"There's no such thing as your Shinigami form anymore, King!"_**

_Maybe . . . Kisuke anticipated this happening, and had last-second modifiers in place to make sure I blended into whatever world I ended up in._

_"That seems likely."_

_Which means he might have a way to get me back._

**_"We dunno that."_**

_"I agree with the hollow."_

It was strange, I reflected, how Old Man Zangetsu referred to Zangetsu as a hollow. Then again, I realized, it would be a hell of a lot more confusing if he didn't.

_"If we wait, we will eventually find our way home."_

**_"Yeah, I guess. But we're gonna fight in the meantime!"_**

_You're way too excited about that. I guess . . . I could join Fairy Tail. If they're as powerful as Lucy says, sticking with them could lead me to whatever I need to get out of here._

**_"And you'll get to fight along the way!"_**

There was obvious glee in Zangetsu's double-toned mental voice and I sighed.

_Yeah, whatever. I'll join tomorrow, when Lucy heads over. Hopefully she told me enough so that I don't seem stupid._

_"We will help."_

**_"Ya better learn to summon us like this before ya go, King. I don't wanna fight without a sword."_**

_I'll do that tomorrow morning._

* * *

A/N _Let me know what you guys think! When I continue this, I'll probably be doing the Edolas Arc._

_-RoR_

_If Ichigo seems too calm in this, know that after the war against Aizen he really mellowed out, and he recognizes that he'll need to fit in to stop everyone from freaking out, which is why he isn't dead serious all the time._

_8/19/14: Good news! I have typed out chapter two because of the overwhelming feedback for this story. Expect it next Saturday, coupled with the next chapter of _Ichigo, Meet Ichigo!


	2. Chapter 2

_Savor this update, because it will be the last one for a while. School is being a bitch, and I can't keep up, so writing is going to have to take a backseat. If you guys want updates, check my profile every now and then; it'll show if I've changed the update schedule of a story._

_Also, holy crap this story has a lot of support. You guys must really like Fairy Tail/Bleach crossovers._

* * *

Chapter 2

"Your clothes are _what_? How?"

"Relax, Lucy," I said, wincing slightly at her loud volume so early in the morning. We'd already eaten breakfast, and I'd shared my theory about my clothes—phrasing it as "I think my magic is connected to my clothes"—which had prompted her high-pitched reaction. "I'm just thinking that my magic is connected to my clothes and my sword!" Luckily, replacing the word "Reiatsu" with "magic" wasn't that hard.

"You don't have a sword!"

I smirked. "Says who?"

Lucy could only stare as I reached out in front of me with both hands and concentrated the Reiryoku inside of me, molding it into the two blades I'd grown so accustomed to during the war. It was difficult, but with assurances from Old Man Zangetsu and Hollow Zangetsu, I knew it was working. In less than two seconds of intense concentration, I felt a familiar grip appear in my right hand, and then in my left, followed closely by cheering from a certain hollow in my head.

"Wow," Lucy breathed, staring at the oversized Khyber knife in my right hand, which extended to at least half my height, with a hilt the length of my forearm. White bandage-like material wrapped around the hilt in a kind of grip. The blade had a hollowed-out portion running along the back going halfway up its length for reasons I didn't understand, but I liked it. In my left hand, I held the trench knife that was the embodiment of my Quincy abilities, extending the length of my arm with an enclosed grip that acted as a hand guard, also wrapped in that white material.

I grinned, examining the blades, indescribably happy that I could summon them so easily. After making a mental note to practice summoning them until I could do it immediately, I let the blades vanish back to whatever place I had summoned them from.

"_Who_ doesn't have a sword?" I asked with a grin.

**_"Wow, King, ya loosened up real quick."_**

_"Be quiet, hollow. It is merely a coping mechanism."_

_Both of you, it would be great it I didn't need to split my attention right now._

Obligingly, my Zanpakutō spirits went quiet.

"So . . ." Lucy murmured, staring at me. Her eyes were wide. "Are you going to join Fairy Tail? You seem to be pretty strong. . ."

"That reminds me," I muttered, glancing at her. "I think that my magic energy is different than yours."

"Different?"

"Yeah. I can sense yours, and it's pretty strong from what I can tell, but mine feels different."

"You can sense mine?" She asked, eyes wide. "And it's strong?" For some reason, she seemed inordinately pleased at that statement.

"Yes," I repeated. "But mine feels different." I hesitated, and then grinned sheepishly. "I would demonstrate, but I don't want to destroy anything on accident . . ."

Lucy rolled her eyes, seemingly exasperated. "I doubt you're that strong," she said. "No offense, but I've have a dragon slayer in here and my apartment is still standing. I think it'll be fine."

_"If dragon slayers are as strong as she says, then there should not be a problem. The seal is still intact, so your power will not be overwhelming."_

**_"You should take the seal off, King!"_**

_No, Zangetsu. Old Man, can you help me with this? I think I'll need a tighter grip on my power than normal._

_"Of course."_

_Thanks._

"Okay, watch," I said, standing in the middle of the room and closing my eyes. After a deep breath, I opened them again, and carefully loosened the tight reign I kept on my Reiatsu, bit by bit.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, and I could feel Lucy about to comment, but then I felt Old Man Zangetsu pitch in, and the atmosphere of the small apartment seemed to thicken so that the air felt like water. Lucy froze, her eyes widening, as the air distorted from my power. Just before she stopped being able to breathe, I cut back on my power and the pressure vanished.

For a few moments, there was nothing but silence. I blinked, surprised at how my abilities were undiminished. Sure, I'd suspected it, but seeing it was another matter entirely.

"Wow," Lucy breathed. "That was . . . incredible."

"You think so?" I had no basis to compare my abilities to. Frankly, I was just praying that there was no Kenpachi in this dimension.

**_"I hope there is."_**

_Not helping._

_"I can distract him for a while."_

_That would be awesome. Please._

From the resonating silence in my mind, Old Man Zangetsu was doing as promised.

"Definitely," Lucy affirmed, visibly impressed. "You should totally join Fairy Tail! Of course," she mused, "you'll probably have to deal with Natsu . . ."

"Natsu?"

"The dragon slayer," she explained. "He's really strong, and obsessed with fighting anyone stronger than him."

**_"YES!"_**

_Old Man!_

_"He got away."_

"I—"

"So are you joining?"

"I—"

"I mean, Fairy Tail is just awesome and not to brag or anything but Erza and Natsu and Gray are amazingly strong and I don't know why they drag me along but the missions are always super incredible—did I tell you about the Fantasia Parade?—plus something is _always_ bound to happen and—"

"Lucy," I interrupted, deeming that she'd rambled for long enough. "Relax. I'll join the guild."

She was speechless for all of three seconds.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Wow, okay. Huh."

"What's with that look?"

"What look?"

"You're staring at me."

"Well, you're a stranger I literally tripped over last night from another country and now you're joining my guild!"

"Stranger things have happened," I muttered, thinking of a certain night when an invisible woman passed through my window and ended up stabbing me with her sword.

Again with the stabbing pattern. Seriously.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. So, anything else I should know about Fairy Tail?"

Lucy thought for a moment, tapping her chin. "Depends. How good are your reflexes?"

* * *

"Whatever you see when I open the door, don't react," Lucy said urgently, standing outside the gates of the Fairy Tail guild. It was an impressive, castle-like structure, with a bell tower on the top. It felt a bit extravagant to me, but in a welcoming kind of way.

"Okay," I said. There was no way that a magical guild could throw anything unexpected at me that would be enough to get a reaction. War had kind of dulled my visible, non-violent reactions. Hell, the majority of people only got a raised eyebrow, or, if I was angry, a scowl and a glare.

They tended not to stick around much after that.

With a deep breath—was she _bracing herself_ to enter _her own guild hall_?—Lucy pushed open the doors, not even flinching at the sudden rush of noise that came from inside. It was a large room, I noted, with a bar at one end, a staircase, and lots of tables scattered about. Various people were seated around the room in small and large groups, talking and drinking.

The woman behind the bar was serving drinks to a small man, who even from the back was clearly old, though the way he was drinking belied that image.

Lucy was frowning. "I wonder where Natsu-?"

"LUCKY!"

She sighed. "Never mind."

A flying blue cat (seriously?) swooped over Lucy's head, and I could've sworn that it was holding a fish.

Then, as if she needed a second, Lucy yelled out a second thing. "AND MY NAME'S LUCY, YOU DUMB CAT!"

"Oh, hey, Lily," said a pink-haired boy that was chasing the cat into the guild. He wore strange clothes, topped with a scale-patterned scarf, but I decided not to pass judgment. After all, Yumichika was far worse, not that I'd ever say that in front of him.

"IT'S LUCY!"

"Why are you so sensitive about your name?" I asked. She seethed for a moment before replying.

"Because they _always get it wrong_."

"There's no way they're always wrong."

"You'd be surprised."

A loud clang interrupted my reply, and I turned back to face the inside of the guild. When I did, I noticed Lucy's muttering of, "That didn't take long".

"That" turned out to be that boy tripping over something and landing on a table, knocking over a few drinks in the process. I blinked, sensing the rising tension as the boy stared down another man, but the contest was interrupted by another voice.

"Watch what you're doing, flame breath!"

Instantly, the boy was across the room and facing off against another kid his age, with black hair and an annoyed expression. For some reason, he wasn't wearing a shirt. Or pants.

"Mind your own business, stripper!"

I glanced at Lucy. "Are they . . . insulting each other?"

"Yup. The pink-haired one is Natsu the fire dragon slayer. The other one is Gray, and he practices ice make magic."

Thanks to Lucy's crash course on magic the previous night, I actually had some idea of what that was.

"Are they always like this?"

"Well, usually Gray can keep his shirt on for longer, but—oh, there they go."

What had been a contest of (admittedly lame) insults had abruptly changed to a fistfight. As it went, more and more bystanders got dragged into it.

There was some big guy yelling about fighting being manly.

"Elfman, he practices takeover magic," Lucy explained.

A black-haired, metal-studded guy who only joined the fight after he got hit by a punch from Natsu meant for Gray.

"Gajeel, the iron dragon slayer."

It didn't take long for nearly everyone in the giant bar room to be dragged into the fight. Lucy rattled off names and magic while I struggled to keep them straight; even now, my inability to remember names and faces was still a problem.

Either way, judging from the fight—hold on, did someone just kick another person across the room?—the whole guild was full of Kenpachis. I tried to ignore the feelings of elation from my inner hollow and instead looked at Lucy.

"Hey, which one's the guild master?"

From what Lucy had told me, I needed to talk to the guild master if I wanted to join. Wordlessly, she pointed in the direction of the bar. Narrowing my eyes, I realized that she was probably pointing to the old (and tiny) man sitting there. For a moment, I was shocked, but then I remembered Yachiru, and shuddered. Size does not matter in terms of power.

"You should probably wait until they're done fighting," Lucy said, ducking out of the way of a stray beer mug. I smirked.

"That'll take too long."

Then, after effortlessly catching a plate headed straight for my face and handing it to Lucy, I set off across the room.

I'd traversed hundreds of battlefields during the Winter War. A bar room brawl was absolutely nothing to me. With ease, I sank into the rhythm of the fight and automatically chose the safest path to walk, trusting my peripheral vision to pick up any stray flying objects. Once, there was a close call where that guy (Elfman?) came flying past me, presumably hit by another person. He crashed into the wall and stayed down, groaning.

After what felt like hours but was probably only a minute, I made it to the bar and sat down next to the old man, not even blinking as another beer mug flew by my face.

There was a woman to my left with brilliant scarlet hair eating a small amount of strawberry-topped cake, which she seemed to be enjoying. I took notice that there were far fewer projectiles hurtling in her direction. Judging from the armor she wore, she was a warrior, so maybe that was intentional. It was best not to piss of the strong fighters.

Unfortunately, she never got to finish her cake. A goddamn _barrel_ of beer, half empty from the sound it made when it hit her, cause her hand to jerk and send the cake over the edge and onto the floor.

There was a single instant where all fighting stopped as everyone in the guild looked at the woman.

"H—hey, Erza," someone said, "sorry 'bout your cake—"

He was cut off as the woman (Erza?) dove into the fray, and even I was impressed by the viciousness of her attacks. She relentlessly beat up the guy who had spoken up until he was on the ground, squeaking out "mercy", though Erza looked like the word was foreign to her.

No wonder people had been trying not to hit her.

Turning back around, I realized that the guild master was looking at me.

"And who might you be, boy?" He asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. He either didn't care or was completely unaware of the brawl happening behind him.

"Ichigo Kurosaki," I said, figuring that it was best to make a decent impression. "I want to join the guild."

"Do you now?" His eyes narrowed fractionally as he leaned towards me, getting uncomfortably close. In response, I leaned back, unable to keep the confusion out of my eyes. This went on for several uncomfortable seconds, to the point where I was beginning to lose my balance on the stool.

Abruptly, the old man returned to his seat and I let out a breath, recovering my position and refraining from saying anything. If Old Man Zangetsu hadn't been keeping my inner hollow busy, I probably would've been hearing some pretty violent commentary in my mind.

"Nice to meet ya," the old man said brightly, sticking out his hand as if the whole staring thing hadn't happened. Caught off-guard, I shook his hand.

"Um . . ."

"The name's Makarov, and I'm the guild master of Fairy Tail. May I ask what brought you here?"

"Lucy Heartfilia. I ran into her and—"

"No, no. _What_ brought you here?" The statement was accentuated with a poke to my chest, over where my heart would be. Understanding dawned on me, drowning out the slight annoyance I felt at the whole poking thing.

"Oh." I took a second to think, knowing that what I said was actually a kind of test. "I guess . . . since I grew up in a violent place—" _might as well stick to the back story I gave Lucy_—"I wanted to get stronger to protect those I care about. Joining this guild seemed like a good way to do that."

**_"You give vague a whole new meanin', King."_**

_Shut up._

"Mmmm . . ."

The guild master was quiet for a few moments, regarding me openly with a difficult-to-read expression.

Then he jumped onto the bar, held his drink in the air, and proclaimed, "WE HAVE A NEW MEMBER!"

_"Subtlety is not their strong suit."_

_I've noticed that, thanks._

And then, as if he hadn't just shouted the news to the entire guild, Makarov was back in his seat and glancing at the woman behind the bar. "Mira, where is our guild stamp?"

"Right here, Master," the woman replied brightly, reaching behind the bar and pulling out a stamp. She glanced at me. "You must be the new member," she said.

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, where would you like it?"

Thanks to Lucy, I actually knew what she was talking about.

"Upper arm, please."

Carefully, I slipped my sweatshirt down to the point where my right shoulder was exposed. The woman—Mira—nodded, not even asking why my shirt was ripped, and pressed the stamp against my skin, around my bicep. It felt strangely warm, and I saw why when Mira removed it; there was a black mark on my skin, clearly the guild mark.

Frankly, I was fine with the black color. Lucy said that it was random, and Hollow Zangetsu never would've let me live down a pink guild mark. It worked for Lucy, but not me.

Quickly, I pulled my sweatshirt back up, not wanting to expose the tattoos on my forearm. Even _I_ didn't know why I had them, though Hollow Zangetsu thought it was because I'd gotten my true Zanpakutō.

Unfortunately for my dislike of the spotlight, Makarov wasn't done. This time when he shouted into the crowd, it was for a specific person.

"NATSU! GET OVER HERE!"

For such a short guy he had incredibly impressive volume, since his words were clearly audible over the fighting. If I remembered correctly, Natsu was that pink-haired guy, and the one who basically started the fight.

_"He will probably be the one showing you around."_

_Why couldn't Lucy do that?_

**_"King, she's obviously busy."_**

Confused, I looked around for the blonde and couldn't stop the slight widening of my eyes when I saw that she was surrounded by another group of girls; Erza had stopped beating everyone up and was now saying something to her animatedly, alongside a petite blue-haired girl and _another_ girl with blue hair.

Orange was starting to look like a tame color.

**_"You wish."_**

_Says the albino._

**_"I'm not an albino!"_**

_Yes, you are. Now shut up; I think I need to pay attention for this._

**_"Fine. But I want to fight someone."_**

_"Not now, Hollow. Ichigo is busy."_

**_"But-!"_**

There was a noise I couldn't identify from my mindscape, and then it was blessedly silent. During the mental conversation, Natsu had made his way over to the bar, completely heedless of the bruises forming on his skin and the various fights he nearly got dragged into. He seemed to be navigating the room with the skill of long practice.

_If the fights are as common as Lucy says, then that's not surprising. Plus, Natsu seems like the kind of guy to initiate a lot of fights._

_"He will likely challenge you."_

**_"I call fighting him!"_**

_"You will do no such thing."_

**_"Now hold up a second, you stuck-up—"_**

"Hey, new guy!" Natsu declared, striding up to the bar. Silently, I thanked his intervention, since it distracted me from the voices in my head.

"Natsu Dragneel, this is Ichigo Kurosaki. He just joined, and I want you to show him the ropes." A crafty gleam entered the master's eye, one that reminded me all too keenly of Urahara back when he was still a crafty bastard. "And, if you would, I want you to accompany him on his first mission."

"Okay," Natsu said easily. I glanced at him, surprised. Seeing my look, he grinned.

"I figure I'll get to fight you during the mission, new guy! And I need some money for food . . ." He added thoughtfully. On cue, his stomach rumbled.

"It's Ichigo," I muttered. "Not 'new guy'."

"But you are the new guy," Natsu said with some confusion.

_He's worse than Renji . . ._

"Okay, whatever," I growled, standing. "Let's just pick a mission or something."

However, the master wasn't done speaking with Natsu. "My boy, Erza and Gray are both off on missions of their own, so it'll just be you and Lucy with this guy." He leaned in conspiringly, and I realized he'd been drunk the entire time. "Keep a close eye on him, eh? Wouldn't want him to get hurt!"

I bristled, and I heard Hollow Zangetsu's echoes of indignation even without him saying anything. Somehow I managed to refrain from commenting. After all, I usually had to demonstrate my strength before getting anyone's respect, and apparently this guild was no different.

"One last thing," Master Makarov proclaimed, looking straight at me once again. "What kind of magic do you practice?"

It made sense that he wanted to know my magic. After all, if I took a job that was too hard, both Natsu and the master would be able to stop me, since I knew that I had to go through the master to get a job, though Natsu was probably going to explain that on the way over. And from what Makarov had said, Lucy was going to be joining me too.

Joy.

Then again, I did look pretty . . . rebellious.

_All black, Kisuke? Seriously?_

"I practice sword magic," I said easily, slipping into the lie with ease. I'd practiced it with Lucy the previous night, and now "sword magic" was replacing "Shinigami". At least I didn't have to separate from my body here. That would be awkward. "And at least where I came from I was pretty good."

_The best, actually._

**_"Kenpachi?"_**

_We're not going into that, got it? You might summon him here._

Makarov made a thoughtful noise and then shrugged, dismissing us. After glancing at me, Natsu hit his fists together.

"All right! New guy, you should totally join my team!"

I tried to stop from raising my eyebrow. I really did.

_"No, you didn't."_

"You don't even know if I'm strong or not," I said. He just grinned at me.

"You smell strong." And that was his entire explanation. "The request board is over there, so we're going to have to go through the fight again to get there. You ready?"

Without even bothering to wait for me to reply, Natsu dove into the fray, looking way too happy about it. I sighed.

_I should probably get Lucy._

_"She is still over in that group of women."_

_Thanks, Old Man._

Briefly, I debated actually going through the various fighting people between Lucy and I. Then I figured that if I was going to have to deal with a guy like Natsu for the duration of the mission, I could cut myself some breaks.

In a brief flit of Shunpo, I traversed the entire room and stopped next to Lucy's group, who didn't notice my sudden appearance for a few seconds.

"Hey, Lucy," I said calmly, knowing she would be able to hear me. "The guild master wants you to accompany me on my first mission."

One of the woman I hadn't noticed before—was she drinking beer out of a _barrel_?—sauntered over to me, her eyes narrowed. When she spoke, the slurring in her words marked her as drunk.

_So early in the morning?_

"Who the hell're yoo?" She hiccupped. Lucy flushed, standing up.

"Uh, this is Ichigo Kurosaki. I ran into him earlier; he just joined the guild."

"Oh, nice to meet you!" The older woman with blue hair said, setting down the book she had been looking at. "My name is Levy."

"Nice to meet you," I replied. Sensing danger, I tilted my head to the side, just in time to avoid a plate that whistled through the air where my head had been.

"I'll see you guys later," Lucy quickly stated, grabbing me and pulling me away. I raised an eyebrow.

"What's the rush?"

She looked at me, askance. "Do you have _any _idea what they were thinking?" Then she amended the statement. "Well, besides Wendy."

"Wendy?"

"The little girl with pigtails. She's the sky dragon slayer."

"Oh."

"Anyway, they were going to think that we were . . . you know!"

For a moment, I didn't understand. Then Hollow Zangetsu decided to enlighten me.

**_"They thought you two were gonna have sex!"_**

If I hadn't dealt with Yoruichi for so long, I probably would've been blushing, but I really couldn't care less at this point. Honestly, it would take more than this to get a reaction for me.

"Let them think that," I said, dismissive. "I want to get this mission over with so I can start doing them on my own. I know Natsu is going to be a pain, so hopefully having you here too will—"

"Hold on, why is Natsu coming?"

"Master Makarov said he was, so he is."

Lucy looked surprised. "Did he ask you to join his team?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, why?"

She looked excited. "You totally should!"

I let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'll think about it, since judging by your reaction you're probably on his team too, okay?"

Lucy seemed to be disappointed by my reaction, but she let it drop. Her gaze wandered over the fight that was _still going on_, and sighed. "Can we wait a few minutes?"

"Nope. Natsu's waiting by the board."

And then, because I wanted to see her expression, I picked her up and used Shunpo to get to the request board, dropping her as soon as I arrived. Her face was white and her eyes were wide as saucers, I noted with pleasure.

"Wh- What was that?" She demanded, scrambling to her feet and failing to hide the blush that was rapidly creeping over her features. I grinned easily. _Maybe this has loosened me up. Wow._

"My friend taught me a high-speed technique. It's nothing special."

Lucy's red face changed to hold a tinge of green.

"Please warn me next time," she managed. I shrugged; it made sense that the high speeds of Shunpo would be nauseating for someone unused to them.

"About time you got here, Ichigo!" Natsu called, holding a piece of paper in his hands. There was a number written at the bottom—50,000. Presumably, that was the reward. "I picked out the perfect mission!"

He held it up, and Lucy quickly snatched it away, at which point she read it aloud. "Lost family heirloom in haunted forest," she read. "Help would be much appreciated."

I frowned. "Natsu, this is my mission. I think I'll look at the other requests before I pick that one."

The dragon slayer sulked for a minute, taking the request back. While I looked over the requests, the flying blue cat came back and stole the request, flying around Natsu while the frustrated mage tried to get it back.

_"You should not pick something too challenging to begin with. We do not know the extent of the power of the people in this world."_

_That's true._

**_"Screw that! No matter what happens, we kick ass! Pick a hard one, King!"_**

_That's tempting._

Temptation won out. "This one," I said decisively, grabbing one and vanishing in a flash of Shunpo before Natsu or Lucy could say anything. After clearing it with the master—which consisted of him peering at the paper, then at me, then at the paper, then at me, and then nodding—I went back to where my apparent teammates were. Unsurprisingly, that was still by the request board.

"Don't do that!" Lucy shouted at me. "Vanishing is _not_ okay!"

I was about to point out that I didn't vanish when I realized that vanishing was exactly what I appeared to do to people unskilled in Shunpo.

"Sorry," I said eventually, not sounding sorry at all. "Anyway, this one has a reward of 150,000 Jewel, so I figured it would be easy to split it three ways."

_And it'll help me pay rent to Lucy. No way am I freeloading like Renji used to._

Thinking of my friends sent a pang through my chest, and I hurriedly locked those memories away.

Lucy looked surprised. "You're going to split the reward."

I gave her a confused look. "Of course. If you guys are coming, you deserve it."

"We're just supposed to be your . . ." Lucy searched for the word.

"Babysitters?" Natsu put in, sounding bored. Apparently, he'd gotten out of his sulking and had moved straight into boredom. I smirked inwardly, knowing he'd probably be significantly less bored once he saw what mission I'd chosen. Lucy sweatdropped.

"No, that's not really—"

"It's true," I interrupted, shrugging. "But I don't care. You're welcome to help if any of them get away."

"Them?" Lucy questioned.

"Yeah," I replied with a smug grin. "The mission is to raid a bandit camp outside Oak Town. Apparently since the previous guild—"

"Phantom Lord," Natsu growled darkly.

"—yeah. Anyway, since they're gone, some bandits decided to move in. The mayor is offering a pretty good reward to get rid of them."

"An entire camp?" Lucy squeaked, her hand automatically going to the keys at her waist.

"Yup," I affirmed, turning and striding towards the door. "The leader's supposed to be pretty strong."

I wasn't sure if the anticipation I was feeling was from my inner hollow or not, but either way I was seriously looking forward to the fight. Hopefully, Natsu didn't challenge me before that; otherwise I might accidentally hurt him without knowing his actual abilities.

* * *

At the train station, I realized that Natsu was a lot more impulsive than I'd first thought.

On the train, I found out that Natsu had crippling motion sickness.

When we arrived, I discovered that Natsu recovered from his crippling motion sickness remarkably quickly and subsequently tried to do something impulsive; namely, charge off into the forest before we even met with the mayor.

Luckily, Lucy managed to kick him—she called it her special "Lucy Kick"—and then I threw the guy over my shoulder and carried him to the mayor's house.

On the way, I took in the scenery. Oak Town was a beautiful town, built like a medieval village (though the castle seemed to be missing; judging from Lucy and Natsu's expressions upon seeing that it was probably best that I not ask), with sprawling forests outside and sparkling waters. The sun was warm on my back; at least, the parts not covered by Natsu's semiconscious body.

_Note to self: do not get hit by a Lucy Kick._

**_"Wimp."_**

_"There you are, hollow."_

**_"Son of a bit—!"_**

"Ah, so good of you to come!"

"_That's_ the mayor?" Immediately after Lucy said that, she covered her mouth, obviously not intending to say it out loud. Luckily, the mayor didn't seem to have heard.

He was a short, round man with more face than hair and—_Kami, it's blinding_—the single most hideous suit and tie combination in history. It was plaid, bright pink mixed with a puke green and I could just _see_ Lucy's fashion sense wilting and dying.

"Uh, yeah," I said, dropping Natsu unceremoniously. Happy didn't protest, having learned on the train ride over that I was _not_ to be fucked with after asking me whether I had any fish one too many times.

I may have let Hollow Zangetsu out for a moment there.

"We're from Fairy Tail," I continued, trying to avoid looking at the glaring affront of a tie that was fastened around the mayor's neck. Seriously, how did those colors even _mix_? I was a battle-hardened warrior with skewed priorities and even I recognized that there were some things out there that people just shouldn't wear, that suit being first on the list. "Here to take the job about the bandits causing you trouble."

"Yes, yes, I figured as much. Just to, ah, make sure, may I see the paper?" Seeing my raised eyebrow, he explained. "We've had a few fakers in recent jobs, can't have that, eh?"

"Sure," I muttered, pulling out the job request. The mayor took it—_I had no idea rings that gaudy existed_—and then handed it back to me, appeased.

"The bandits are about two kilometers that way," he said, pointing. "I'd offer you a map, but we don't have one."

**_"Che. He's honest at least."_**

_That's about it._

_"I must agree."_

**_"Yeah."_**

When all three parts of me agreed on something, it usually wasn't a good sign.

"That's fine," I said. "Lucy, you ready?"

The celestial mage nodded, her eyes fixed solely in my direction and not on the man a meter away.

"Happy?"

"Aye, sir!"

At some point, the cat had flown off and returned with a fish. Frankly, I didn't want to know. I tried not to pay attention to the fact that the cat was more irritating than the dragon slayer he hung around. Seeing me looking at said fish, Happy did a terrible job of hiding it and an even worse job of trying to look innocent. After an annoyed sigh, I began walking in the direction of the camp. Lucy followed, and judging from Natsu's groans he was waking up.

Twenty steps later, Natsu caught up.

"Lucy," he groaned, "that was a hard kick."

"You were being impulsive," I cut in, trying not to think _I used to be like that too_. "So, Lucy stopped you. Thanks for that by the way, Lucy."

"No problem."

Natsu muttered something under his breath but continued walking. He took sulking to a whole new level.

**_"I wanna fight 'im."_**

_You're not going to fight Natsu._

**_"Why not?"_**

_"Because you might kill him."_

**_"You don't know that!"_**

_I'm pretty sure he does._

**_"Come on! I know what restraint is!"_**

_"You really do not."_

_I agree with the old man._

**_"You always do!"_**

_Yeah, 'cause he's _me_, dumbass._

**_"You just insulted yourself."_**

_You do it too._

**_"And?"_**

"Ichigo?"

"What is it, Lucy?"

"Well, don't you think that this is a bit of a tough mission for your first time? I mean, you did pick one of the hardest ones on the request board."

_Is she nervous?_

**_"She's definitely nervous. Weakling."_**

_"Be quiet, hollow."_

"Trust me, I can handle it," I said. Something in my expression must've convinced Lucy that I was serious, because she lapsed into silence.

We walked for a while like that, in silence, with Happy periodically trying to coax fish out of Natsu and Lucy. The former seemed unbothered by the requests. That latter . . . not so much.

Finally, Lucy had enough.

"COME HERE, YOU DUMB CAT!"

"Li-sa~ you're overreacting!"

"IT'S LUCY! LU. CY! WHY IS THAT SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND?!"

That cat really knew how to push Lucy's buttons. I listened to them fight for a few more minutes. After thirty seconds, Natsu joined in, claiming that Lucy was targeting poor Happy and completely ignoring Lucy's complaints to the contrary. Something brushed at the edges and I froze, reaching out my sixth sense. Magic was similar to Reiatsu, so I could sense people just as easily.

And somehow, while I was paying attention to Lucy and Natsu, I'd let us get surrounded.

_"No. They were not here moments ago."_

_How? Teleportation?_

_"It appears that way, yes."_

**_"Pain in the ass, that's what."_**

"Natsu, Lucy," I said, letting some urgency bleed into my tone. Immediately, they stopped squabbling. "Get over here, now. And be ready to fight."

Maybe it was the authority that automatically came into my voice when I gave orders, but something made Natsu, Lucy, and Happy come over by me and face the trees. We were in a small clearing, which had probably been marked as the ambush point for a while.

I could've avoided it, but I would have to deal with the bandits at some point, so I might as well do it now.

My eyes narrowed as I scanned the area. "There's around forty of them," I said. "And maybe ten have magic. One of them seems kinda strong."

"He's mine!" Natsu declared, fire appearing over his fists. I rolled my eyes.

"He's likely to be the leader, Natsu. Since we're supposed to capture them, we'll get him last so that the rest of them don't disperse and make this harder than it has to be. Lucy, you can handle yourself, right?"

She nodded firmly, reaching for one of her keys. "Open, gate of the lion, Leo!"

As she said the words, another presence appeared in the clearing.

"Hey, Lucy," a smooth, cultured voice said. "You ready for our date?"

"Not now! We're about to be attacked by a bunch of bandits and I would really appreciate your help!"

The spirit—a boy with startling orange hair like mine, wearing a suit and stylized glasses—sighed. "I see. Well then, I'll have to take care of them before we dine."

"WE'RE NOT GOING ON A DATE!"

As if Lucy's yelling was the trigger, yells suddenly filled the air as bandits charged into the clearing, wielding various clubs, swords, spears, and axes.

**_"Hey, King!"_**

_You can fight later._

From what I could tell from the scattered and unorganized charge, my swords wouldn't be necessary. Thanks to the Hierro I had developed as a result of training with Hollow Zangetsu, these guys couldn't scratch me if they tried.

. . . And that made me sound like Kenpachi. Great.

Natsu had already dived into the group, flaming punches sending the bandits flying. Lion-boy was also punching, his hands glowing gold. Lucy, not to be outdone, had a whip in her hands that she was wielding with considerable ease.

However, this was my mission, and I couldn't just stand around and watch as my new guild mates did the work for me.

**_"Are you gonna release the seal?"_**

_That would be overkill. Hopefully I won't have to release the seal here at all._

**_"Lame."_**

_"There you are."_

**_"Shit!"_**

One bandit decided to try his luck with me; he held a giant spiked club that might've been intimidating to a different person. However, I caught it with one hand, pushed it to one side to unbalance its wielder, and hit the guy in a cluster of nerves on his chest that knocked him out instantly. He crumpled, nearly getting impaled by his own weapon.

The other bandits nearby charged me all at once, probably trying to overwhelm me with numbers.

Yeah, right. Hollows already tried that tactic, and bandits didn't come close to hollows.

Reverting to my Hakuda skills, I kicked one guy in the face, sending him hurtling back into three others. Then I brought my foot around, hitting another guy, before ducking a punch and retaliating with a swift jab that sent the recipient flying.

A warning flashed in my mind and I ducked again, seeing a sword whistle through the space I'd occupied a second before. I grabbed the blade before it passed me entirely, feeling the dull metal press against my Hierro without actually cutting it. Then I yanked back, pulling the sword from the bandit's grasp. I vaguely heard him make a noise of protest, but it was cut off when a certain dragon slayer's fist crashed into his skull, sending the bandit straight to the ground.

Natsu had a feral grin on his face and he only stopped to give me a smile and say "nice choice" before he was off and fighting again. There was a small crater in the ground where he'd landed.

_Whose mission is this again?_

The brief pause in the fighting that Natsu's sudden appearance had created vanished. Another bandit came at me wielding a long spear, probably hoping to impale me from afar.

Not a chance.

With ease, I adjusted the grip I had on the borrowed sword, stood, and let fly. The solid hilt thunked into the spear-wielding bandit's temple and he went down, tripping another guy as he went.

For the next few minutes, I slipped into a kind of fighting trance. Everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion, despite the fact that I wasn't using Shunpo.

_Wow. I _am_ becoming like Kenpachi, limiting myself like this._

At one point, I caught a knife by the blade. I was confused when it actually bit into my skin, drawing blood. Then I realized that the knife was glowing purple, and the guy wielding it actually had a fair bit of magic. He'd looked so proud, describing his "blade enhancement magic", right up until I snapped his dagger in half and punched his lights out. Instant regeneration healed the cut a split second later, though Hollow Zangetsu wasn't letting me hear the end of the fact that I actually got cut.

Finally, there was only one guy standing; the one with the highest spiritual pre—ah, magical energy. _Dammit this is going to get confusing._

He was scowling, looking at the unconscious and bleeding forms of his comrades.

Suddenly, Natsu was there, throwing a fist at the guy.

"NATSU!" Lucy yelled, sensing the danger but not able to react in time. I did, however, and after cursing Natsu twenty different ways to Hell and back for his inability to think before acting I vanished in a flit of Shunpo, grabbed him by the waist, and threw him back just as the leader launched his attack.

A glowing golden magic circle appeared beneath me, its meaning revealed as spears of light shot up from the ground, seemingly out of nowhere. I tried to move—_I should be able to get out of this trap_—but then I realized that one of the guys I'd thought was unconscious was holding onto my ankle, his hand glowing with magical energy. He grinned at me, and it wasn't the good kind of grin.

"Paralysis," he whispered, right as one of the light spears went through my stomach. Another went through my shoulder, and then my right thigh. Blood sprayed through the air, though luckily the solid light spears seemed to be stopping most of my blood from exiting the wounds.

"ICHIGO!" Lucy screamed, her voice full of fear.

Then, as pain blossomed throughout my body, another man stepped out of the trees, smiling widely. My eyes widened fractionally as I realized that he'd been concealing himself and his magic energy, because he was even stronger than the guy in front of me.

_Dammit, they actually work as a team. The fake leader to draw in attackers followed by grunts to distract them, and then a trap to take out the strongest. But what kind of magic does the real leader use?_

Dimly, I realized that the pain from my wounds was mutating into something much worse, and it didn't help that the spears were still in place, frozen in the air.

_What the hell? It shouldn't hurt this bad!_

The real leader held up his hand, and purple _something_ bled off of it, hitting the ground, only to hiss and steam.

"Poison magic," he said calmly, staring me straight in the eye. "Good bye, you foolish mage."

I blinked, gritting my teeth.

_Dammit. I rushed into battle without knowing my opponents' abilities first. How could I have been so goddamn careless?_

_"Ichigo, the poison is extremely potent. You must—"_

**_"King, instant regeneration can't keep up! It's spreading and I can't do this withou—"_**

Both spirits abruptly went silent, cut off by agony that invaded my mind and made my thoughts grow panicked for the first time in months.

_Zangetsu? Zangetsu!_

And then my vision went black.

* * *

_A/N Ah, cliffhangers. I am a cruel person._

_I promise that I will be updating this story again, though it may take months (screw you, school!)._

**_Reviews (if I spell your pen name wrong, I'm sorry):_**

**_Ryunjin Zangetsu 17: _**_First person POV is going to remain a thing, sorry. _

**_Mzr90: _**_I'm not a huge fan of pairing. There may be moments between Ichigo and various characters, but romance just isn't my style._

_**gunzen:** fixed it, thank you for pointing it out._

**_Just a guest:_**_ Hm. Please note that in this story Ichigo is technically 26, though he looks 17-18. Hormones may affect his judgement, but he's also been through an eight-year war and seen those he cares about most slaughtered in front of him. Romance is not exactly at the forefront of his mind, nor does he particularly care about it._

**_ultima-owner: _**_Thank you!_

**_Guest:_**_ no serious pairings is the plan my good sir._

**_jeya . mendoza: _**_I'm not a huge fan of pairings, but there will be moments between various characters so people can get a little bit of everything. Maybe._

**_owieeey:_**_ Thank you for the compliment, and I hope you enjoyed._

**_manuel . camero .12:_**_ Thank you!_

**_I don't have a good name idea:_**_ I like your name idea, and thank you for being so polite! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!_

_**Please uodate: **I'm not really a physical contact kind of person, nor do I like cherries or caramel, but the sentiments are appreciated!  
_

**_Skiing-girl:_**_ short, succinct, and to the point. Nice review._

_And that, my friends, is the single highest number of reviews I've gotten for any chapter of any of my stories ever. _

_Feel proud of yourselves, and please keep reviewing!_

_Until next time, _

_-RoR_

_P.S. I've mentioned this in _Rewind_, but some of you guys have some seriously concerning pen names. You know who you are._

_8/26/14: *sighs* since so many of you people are getting on my case about this, it's apparently necessary that I explain exactly why and how Ichigo was able to be caught off-guard like this, especially after he went through a war._

**_So here is why Ichigo got hurt._**

_Simply put, Ichigo has no experience with magic. He doesn't really know its limits, and his crash course with Lucy couldn't cover everything. There is no Reiatsu for Ichigo to really adjust to, and while magic energy does have natural protective __powers for those who have it it's not quite the same as Kenpachi's situation._

_Therefore, Ichigo has no experience countering magic with his own power. He doesn't know how. And thanks to his natural protective instincts, he charged in to rescue Natsu before fully examining the trap that was set. The paralysis magic stopped Ichigo's flow of Reiryoku, essentially pausing the venting of Reiryoku from Ichigo's wrists for a split second. That weakened his Hierro to the point where it was basically useless, and it also prevented Ichigo from using any of his Quincy abilities._

_The poison magic is incredibly potent, to the point where it's enough to severely damage Ichigo's body, especially since he no longer has the natural resistance of his spiritual form, which he is accustomed to. While he's familiar with his body enough to compensate, he still fought the war as a Shinigami, and it will take him a while to fully adjust. Therefore, his Hierro is a little off anyway, which-coupled with the thug's magic, which while not overwhelming was fairly potent when channelled into his blade-was enough to let Ichigo get cut._

_In order for instant regeneration to work, Ichigo needs to be able to send Reiryoku to the wounded areas. Paralyzed as he was, he couldn't do that. While the ability works while he is unconscious, it would only be doing so using the natural flow of Reiryoku throughout Ichigo's body, a drastic reduction from what Ichigo could do while conscious._

_Overall, two things caused this to happen:_ _**inexperience**_ _with his new body, and **inexperience**_ _with magic types and how to counter them._

_I hope this clears things up. Ichigo needed to learn that while he is strong compared to everyone else, he doesn't have the experience to back up that strength._


	3. Chapter 3

_Well, if I posted a chapter for _Rewind_ I should post a chapter for _Rift._ Plus, I left you guys on that cliffhanger that really seemed to bug some of you._

_So, in celebration of me completing my summer work, here's the next chapter._

* * *

Chapter 3

_"Ichigo? Ichigo, can you hear my voice?"_

**_"Obviously he can't or he would've responded by now."_**

_"If we do not do something, Ichigo will be harmed. His friends are not strong enough to stop the leader from attacking Ichigo in time."_

**_"Then I'm going out."_**

_"You know that Ichigo—"_

**_"Fuck that. The King's in danger, Old Man! I'm not sitting on my ass when I can do something about it!"_**

* * *

_Why does everything hurt so much? My leg . . . My shoulder . . .My stomach . . . It burns . . ._

_"Ichigo, can you hear me?"_

_Zangetsu?_

_"You must get up. My ability to protect you from damage was limited by that bandit's paralysis; you took those attacks at full force with no defense, not even a full-strength Hierro."_

As if Old Man Zangetsu's words were a reminder, bright bolts of pain lanced through the body that I was just beginning to feel. My arms and legs felt heavy and my shoulder, stomach, and thigh felt like they were slowly being torn apart, piece-by-piece. Automatically, my mind thought _poison_, and then I mentally assessed the damage. It was serious, but nothing I couldn't handle, especially not after Aizen so generously took me in at Las Noches and tortured me for so many days and nights I lost track of time and my throat was raw and bleeding from all the screaming I did and I haven't screamed since and if I didn't have that necklace the scars would show and then everyone would know that I wasn't even strong enough to protect myself_—_

_"Open your eyes, Ichigo."_

I could hear the worry in his voice; thankfully, it snapped me out of those thoughts before it was too late, and I quickly calmed myself down.

Old Man Zangetsu was right. Compared to what Aizen had done, this tiny bit of poison was nothing. I could handle a little bit of poison; hell, the concoctions that I'd suffered through during torture at Las Noches put this guy's magic to shame.

If I'd just seen that the bandit with the paralysis magic was still conscious, I could've handled the situation easily.

I opened my eyes and blinked at the sunlight that lanced into them, momentarily blinding me before I adjusted. When I did, I nearly choked in surprise.

_No wonder my inner world felt empty._

"Zangetsu?" I coughed, starting to sit up. "What the hell are you doing?"

**"Stay down, King," **Hollow Zangetsu replied, his face missing its typical smirk. He actually looked serious, which meant that there was a problem. He was sitting next to me, and I had to admit seeing him in anything other than a white Shihakushō was just odd, though his clothes were still white.

When I didn't follow his order to stay down, his hand slammed down on my chest, forcing me to lie back down at the risk of having one of my ribs broken. My breath left me in a gasp and I found myself staring at the sky, ignoring the pain the agitation to my wounds had caused.

Distantly, I heard explosions. Hollow Zangetsu, seeing this, decided to explain what had happened while I was unconscious.

**"Since Dragon Boy decided t' be an idiot and ya decided t' also be an idiot and save him, ya ended up gettin' injured. When ya were unconscious, the bandits were tryin' t' kill ya, so I had to get out here 'cause yer new friends weren't gonna make it in time."**

"Where are they now?"

**"Other side of the clearing, dumbass. They're fightin' the two leaders." **There was another explosion, followed closely by a rush of heat. **"And they're not really winning'."** The sound of something shattering made Hollow Zangetsu reconsider.** "Well, Dragon Boy is. The broad ain't."**

"_Someone_ won't let me get up!"

**"That's 'cause yer regeneration wasn't working while ya were unconscious."**

That confused me. "What? Why wasn't it working?"

Hollow Zangetsu backtracked, looking annoyed. **"Well, it was working, but really slowly 'cause yer not consciously pushing Reiryoku to the wounds. Now that yer conscious, it should be workin' faster. Just focus more of yer spirit energy on it, and it should speed up enough for ya t' help yer friends."**

I looked down at myself and noted the blood soaking my clothes—and the sweatshirt. _Sorry, Lucy._ A split second later I was taking the Reiryoku that I didn't have sealed and pushing it to the holes in my shoulder, stomach, and thigh, wincing as white material bubbled up around the wounds before vanishing, taking the injuries with it. There was nothing I could do about the blood, so I just let it be.

The drop in my available energy was noticeable, but not worrisome. Hollow Zangetsu watched me as I stood up and took a brief second to make sure that everything was functioning right (I wasn't going to rush into a situation and get myself hurt twice in one hour just because I wasn't prepared. No fucking way).

Without having to say anything else, Hollow Zangetsu vanished, returning to my inner world. I looked across the clearing and then had to dive to one side as a fireball whistled by me. My scowl deepening, I used Shunpo to appear closer to the actual fight.

Natsu was engaging the poison guy and yelling something about how he was "nothing like a poison dragon slayer". From the various burns on the bandit's skin and the slight fear in his expression, I knew that Natsu was winning. The fact that Natsu was simply burning any poison that came near him into oblivion seemed to give him quite an advantage, and Happy was occasionally picking up his partner and flying him around to get better angles of attack.

Lucy, on the other hand, was struggling. She still had her lion spirit out, but every time they tried to launch an attack, whether it was frontal or more complicated, the bandit launched multiple spears of golden light at them. They didn't seem to be powerful_—_Lucy and her spirit could break them pretty easily, like glass_—_but they were numerous enough to provide the two with quite a bit of trouble.

After watching for a few moments to get an idea of what I would be going up against, I realized something.

One of the main reasons Lucy and Leo were having so much trouble was that whenever a light spear hit the ground and appeared to dissipate, it actually formed another magic circle on the ground, causing more spears to shoot up. Since the bandit's magic energy was dropping, I knew that this was a taxing move, but Lucy and Leo were rapidly getting entrapped in the spear prison, no matter how many times they broke the magic or retreated.

_"Attempting to help them with only your fists will not end well."_

**_"I could do it."_**

_Now is not the time, Zangetsu._

Ignoring anything else Hollow Zangetsu had to say, I concentrated and summoned my blades. Thanks to practice on the train of moving my Reiryoku around in the way that would summon the swords—without actually summoning them—I could now do it without having to hold out my arms, though it still took a second for the weapons to actually materialize. I'd have to work on that more later.

Just as a light spear was heading straight for Lucy's heart, Leo noticed and darted in front, probably ready to take the hit himself because there was no time to break it.

My breath caught as I remembered Ikkaku doing the same thing for me, preventing me from getting blindsided by a cero, and the smile on his face even as he fell, burned and bleeding, still haunted my nightmares sometimes and Kenpachi never actually forgave me for that and if Yumichika hadn't died a year earlier he probably would've blamed me too and I_—_

_"Ichigo. Focus."_

I took a deep breath, and then moved.

"Don't do something that stupid," I chided, glancing at Leo evenly, having appeared in front of Leo and shattered the projectile with my smaller blade. Leo looked shocked, and from the way the glowing spears in the air stopped moving temporarily I knew the bandit was surprised too.

"How are you—?" Leo started, but I didn't have time to talk. Maybe we could talk in a minute, when we weren't in the middle of a fight.

Just as Lucy was turning, hearing Leo's words and my own, I vanished again, racing towards the bandit and effortlessly weaving through all of the weapons that were flying through the air once more in a complex series of Flash-Steps that felt as natural as breathing. Yoruichi's training had paid off, and navigating these spears was nothing like navigating a battlefield of hollows.

The bandit was definitely afraid when I appeared in front of him, Zangetsu's cleaver blade held at his throat while I regarded him icily. Fear was going to be my friend here, so I let my eyes become Hollow Zangetsu's: black, with glowing gold irises.

"Don't move," I growled. "I'd hate to have to kill you." I could hear the bloodlust radiating from Hollow Zangetsu, so strong that if I didn't have greater self-control I would've already slit the bandit's throat.

His mouth worked for a moment as I _saw_ the blood drain from his face. Then something flickered in his eyes and I didn't even bother to move as a light spear hit me in my right shoulder, thankfully missing the muscles that were allowing me to hold Zangetsu. I easily could've dodged, but this time that wouldn't have had the same effect that I wanted.

**_"Oi, King! The hell do you think yer doing? Ya _just_ finished healin'!"_**

_I know what I'm doing._

"What was that?" I asked calmly, ignoring the flaring pain from my new injury. I'd heard Lucy gasp when I was hit, heard that Leo guy curse, but they were still stuck in the prison of magic spears. Of course, a moment later I heard the sound of things breaking, and I realized that they were breaking said prison much more quickly than they had been before thanks to me distracting the bandit.

In the background, Natsu crashed to the dirt after having been knocked from Happy's grasp by a particularly nasty punch from the leader. However, he got right back up again brimming with energy and eagerness to keep fighting. He was going to be just fine if he was that much like Kenpachi.

Now the bandit by me was truly afraid. He'd just hit me with one of his attacks—though without the other bandit's poison it really wasn't that bad—at point-blank and I hadn't even blinked. So, he did what most other men in his situation would do:

He fainted.

As he crumpled to the ground, the magic he'd been powering vanished, allowing blood to freely fall from the wound in my shoulder. The sudden lack of something _there_ was disconcerting, but I ignored the feeling and instead channeled more Reiryoku—_I can't make a habit of this_, _it only worked so well during the war_—to my newest injury. A few bubbling sounds later, there was no trace of the injury.

I bent down to examine the man in front of me to make sure that he was definitely unconscious; there was no way I was willing to risk him getting back up.

"Ichigo!"

_So there's Lucy. I was wondering what she was doing._

"Hey, Lucy," I said casually, standing back up after making sure the bandit wouldn't be following my example. I raised an eyebrow at the various scrapes and bruises on her skin. There was a particularly nasty one going along her forearm, but she was paying it no mind. "Are you okay?"

She stared openmouthed at me for a few moments before her voice worked again. "Are you _insane_? Am _I_ okay? You were _dying_ a few minutes ago and now you're perfectly fine!"

"I wouldn't say that," I replied, instinctively sheathing Zangetsu across my back and at my waist. The move was so instinctive, actually, that I was genuinely surprised when the blades didn't fall. Apparently, my new clothes came with nigh-invisible sheaths. Breaking eye contact with Lucy, I checked Zangetsu, and sure enough it was wrapped in white bandages as an impromptu sheath.

_That's convenient._

_"Kisuke evidently planned for this. There is a strap much like your old red one woven into the shirt."_

_I'm not surprised. He was in his lab for a long time._

Suddenly, shouting interrupted my conversation. Glancing to my right, I saw Natsu standing with his hands in the air—celebrating, apparently—over the unconscious body of the other bandit. Happy was flying above him in circles for reasons I didn't understand.

**_"Took 'im long enough."_**

_Be quiet._

"Lucy," I said, facing the mage again, "you should probably go see if Natsu's okay. I'm going to go get tell the mayor we're done, and see if I can catch the stray bandits on the way."

**_"Ha. They thought they could get away."_**

_"They do not know the extent of Ichigo's abilities."_

_And I didn't know theirs. _

The sore point shut them up nicely.

"Are you sure you should be moving around so much?"

"Relax, Lucy," I answered with a smirk. "You and Natsu are in far more danger of collapsing than me."

"Then can I ask how you managed to . . . heal yourself? And move so fast? I thought you just practiced sword magic!"

She was clearly hurt that I'd lied to her, and her feelings were probably amplified by the fact that she'd given me a place to stay when I clearly didn't seem trustworthy. Leo was stationed a few steps away; his arms were crossed, and he evidently agreed with the celestial mage. Judging from the look in his eyes, he desperately wanted to attack me and demand answers, just to see if I was a threat.

It was a look I had shared when Gin joined our ranks during the war, after a failed attempt at assassinating Aizen.

"I'll tell you after, all right?"

"Hey-!"

I was gone before I could hear the rest of her protest. The speed was relaxing, and I knocked out each of the stray bandits—there were six of them—and returned them to the clearing within four minutes, each time leaving the clearing before Lucy or Natsu could see me. I made it to the town in another thirty seconds, the mayor in thirty-five, and I was back in the clearing soon after.

Honestly, I nearly tripped when I saw the mayor again. The time away from his fashion choices had _not_ diminished how completely awful they were. Yumichika would have a heart attack.

_If he was still alive._

**_"Oi, King. That wasn't yer fault."_**

_I could've protected him!_

_"He chose to die to save his comrades. There was nothing dishonorable in his choice, and you should respect it."_

I swallowed back the frustration I was feeling at the memories of Yumichika's death. _Yeah, I know._

When I arrived back at the clearing, Natsu, Lucy, and Leo were waiting for me, though Natsu looked strangely eager. Luckily, the few minutes I'd had to think were more than enough time for me to come up with a plausible lie.

I landed, raising an eyebrow at how the bandits were all tied up. Frankly, I didn't even want to ask where the rope had come from.

"THERE YOU ARE!" Lucy yelled, her eyebrow twitching. When she next spoke, her voice was only down to a moderate yell. "Do you have ANY idea how RUDE it is to just leave when you're in the middle of a conversation?!"

"Yes."

The frank answer caught her off-guard, momentarily halting her tirade. Unfortunately, my smirk brought it back.

"Listen up! I did NOT take you in just so you could vanish on missions and-"

"Actually," I interrupted, trying to keep the amusement out of my voice, "I left to take care of the bandits who were running away. If you didn't notice them suddenly falling from the sky a few minutes ago, I'm kind of disappointed. Then I went over to the town and notified the mayor, who's coming here with the proper authorities and should be here in about ten minutes."

_That_ did it.

"So if both of you—because Natsu, if I'm right you really want to fight me to see how strong I am—want to hear about my abilities, sit down and let me explain. You too, lion boy."

**_"I still want t' fight 'im."_**

_You'll get your chance eventually. Now shut up or help me."_

"Hey!" Leo protested, offended.

I glanced at him with one eyebrow raised. "Look. You've got orange hair that puts mine to shame and is shaped like cat ears, not to mention your name is literally Leo the Lion. Take the nickname and sit. Down."

Amazingly enough, he did exactly that. Lucy and a somewhat pacified Natsu followed suit a moment later.

With a sigh and a brief check to make sure that each of the bandits in the clearing were still unconscious (their Rei—dammit, their _magic energy_ would fluctuate if they woke up) I sat down as well, automatically doing so in a way that my swords were not a problem.

"So," I started, tapping the hilts of my blades to draw attention to them. "As I said, I am a sword mage, and these are my swords. However, I practice a special kind of sword magic: Shinigami magic." I could feel both my Zanpakutō spirits' amusement in my head as I continued speaking, acting like they hadn't helped me think of this. "This means that, on top of having powerful blades, I can also use a high-speed magic called Shunpo, which allows me to move extremely quickly. I can also create an energy blast with my weapon. It's really the only type of magic I learned about."

"That doesn't explain the healing," Lucy pointed out. "And I've never heard of Shinigami magic."

"Would your energy blast be stronger than my Fire Dragon's Roar?" Natsu asked, leaning forward. I glanced at him, frowning.

"I don't know, and I don't want to test it out here. Maybe later. Anyway, Lucy, I can explain the healing too, though it's going to be more difficult. First off, Shinigami magic is extremely rare; Kisuke was the only person I've ever met who knew it, and he's the one that taught it to me. Unfortunately, something went wrong during the process."

"What do you mean?" Leo asked.

"Shinigami magic, because it's so powerful, has a serious downside."

**_"Che. 'Downside'."_**

"It's very similar in nature to Hollow magic, which was expressly forbidden in the village where I grew up."

"Hollow magic?" All three of them repeated. I nodded, feigning confusion.

"You've never heard of it?"

They shook their heads and I sighed, pretending to be annoyed that I had to explain this too.

"Okay. Um, at the expense of your sanity and your human appearance, Hollow magic essentially gives a person superhuman abilities, including extreme strength, speed, regeneration, and an energy blast called a Cero."

"Wait, are you saying that you used this regeneration?" Lucy cut in, her eyes wide. "But that means that you-!"

"You're jumping to conclusions," I chided, knowing but not caring that I was acting older than eighteen; honestly, it was weird to look six years younger than I was. "As I was saying before, Shinigami magic and Hollow magic are on opposite ends of the same magical spectrum. In order to learn Shinigami magic, you have to put yourself at risk of succumbing to Hollow magic instead, which would essentially make you insane, with an insatiable hunger for more magical energy."

"Why would you ever learn something like that?" Lucy breathed, her expression twisted in confusion and horror. "That's awful!"

I shrugged nonchalantly, struggling to keep my calm façade. "I had to, to keep myself and my friends safe. Anyway, during that process, something went wrong. Kisuke never told me exactly what it was, but apparently part of my magic became Hollow in nature."

"How?" Leo asked, seemingly genuinely interested. I shook my head, smirking slightly.

"In order to explain _that_, I have to backtrack again. You see, my swords, as a result of being part of Shinigami magic, essentially _are_ me, like pieces of my soul. They even have a name, which I'm not going to tell you guys because the magic is meant for me and me alone."

"So it's highly personalized," Leo commented thoughtfully, though the suspicion in his eyes never wavered. "That's very clever."

"And cool!" Natsu declared. "Happy! We should totally come up with this cool flame-sword technique and then-"

I coughed, interrupting Natsu's tangent before he could get too far. "Yeah. As I was saying, part of my magic turned Hollow. This became reflected in my swords, with one of the pieces of my soul inside of them becoming fused with that Hollow magic. Do you guys understand that?"

They made various noises of assent and I grinned. "Good. Because I'll introduce that piece of me to you."

With a simple tug on my inner world, Hollow Zangetsu materialized next to me, grinning. He had his swords but, like mine, they were sheathed.

"Lucy and Leo, you guys probably saw him earlier when he pulled me away from that bandit." They nodded.

"I was going to ask you about that," Lucy admitted. "But, if using Hollow magic makes you insane, doesn't that make him . . . you know, insane?"

**"Ya can just ask me, lady," **Hollow Zangetsu said easily, sitting next to me way too casually. If anyone found his double voice weird, they didn't comment. Lucy couldn't hide her slight yelp, however, which caused Hollow Zangetsu and I to smirk.

"That's so cool," Natsu said, his eyes wide with childish wonder. "You two are twins!"

Immediately, I blanched. "No, you've got it wrong."

**"He's closer than ya were the first time."**

"So you two . . . get along?" Leo asked, his brows knitted in thought. It looked kind of funny, honestly.

**"Oh, sure," **Hollow Zangetsu said, drawing out the "sure" and slinging his arm around my shoulder. **"We're _best buddies_. Minus the whole 'he tried to kill me' thing."**

"That was _one time_, and I thought I needed to," I protested. "Not to mention that you were giving every impression that it was the right thing to do!" Hollow Zangetsu laughed, and given his voice it was probably more than a little creepy to those assembled.

**"Ya tried twice, actually."** He grinned at Lucy, who was looking more horrified by the second. **"Relax, princess. I'm not gonna hurt ya, unless ya hurt him." **He jerked a thumb towards me. **"And you," **he continued, looking at Natsu. He paused, grinning. **"I'm gonna fight ya one of these days."**

"You're hopeless," I growled, willing him to go back to my inner world. Hollow Zangetsu had just enough time to shoot me an annoyed look before he went back to my inner world, though I knew he wasn't actually annoyed.

Natsu was looking way too excited for his own good, but I thought I could hold off on the inevitable battle at least until we got back to the guild.

Leo was looking at me and frowning, but he didn't say anything.

Lucy was stuck somewhere in the area between shock, awe, fear, and something I couldn't identify.

"So that's what you meant when you said your magic was different than mine," she muttered, thinking back to what I'd said at her apartment.

Luckily, before things could get awkward, the mayor—accompanied by the local contingent of army soldiers—arrived, with way too much fanfare considering that we had already done all the work. Leo vanished when they appeared, probably going back to the Celestial Spirit world or whatever it was that Lucy had described to me. Did every world have multiple dimensions?

Natsu tried to wave off the reward, but luckily (for my plans to pay Lucy for housing me, at least) Lucy stopped him before he could get two words out of his mouth. Apparently, Natsu did that all the time.

Then the mayor had suggested adding in clothing to the reward, and needless to say we were out of Oak Town in record time—though we did get the Jewel part of the reward first.

Kami, I'm going to stop breathing every time I see the color green on a suit.

**_"Wimp."_**

_You cursed in my head when he made that suggestion. Old Man, back me up!_

_"I do not wish to discuss that man's fashion choices."_

**_"They're better than a black cloak and orange sunglasses."_**

_Did you really just say that?_

Halfway through the trip back to Magnolia, Natsu managed to fall out the window of the train. He'd nearly done it three times, hanging hallway out the window with his face tinged green and moaning, but the fourth time was the charm. Of course, I could've caught him. Failing that, I could've jumped out the window, grabbed him, and returned to the train in less than five seconds.

Of course, I'd grown tired of Natsu's motion-sickness-induced groaning—_seriously, suck it up_—an hour beforehand and I just let him fall. Therefore, we all had to get off the train at the next stop, backtrack, find Natsu, and walk the rest of the way to Magnolia because there were no train stations nearby. And _then_, because that "stupid flying cat Happy couldn't go _ten goddamn minutes_ without eating a goddamn _fish_", we had to spend time searching for him—we found him by a river, soaking wet, without a fish, and visibly upset—and ended up having to camp out for the night. At least Natsu had some blankets.

That quote was from Lucy, when she thought I couldn't hear her. Even I wasn't expecting her to be that angry at Happy.

Although, I was starting to get annoyed with the cat too, to the point where I wasn't even going to ask how a talking blue flying cat came to exist. Especially if there were more like him out there.

So now we were camped out in the woods, Natsu wrapped in his blankets and Lucy in some kind of tent that one of her spirits—Virgo?—had brought her from the Spirit Realm.

If only we'd been able to do that in Hueco Mundo on those freezing nights . . .

**_"King, yer makin' it rain again."_**

_Sorry._

_"Do not apologize. You have gone through difficult times, but you were given a chance to recover. Perhaps Kisuke sent you through that portal knowing that you would not end up back in time, but here instead."_

_What are you getting at, Old Man?_

_"Kisuke knew that sending you back in time would cause severe psychological trauma to you, no matter how prepared you think you are."_

**_"We woulda helped!"_**

_"There is only so much we are capable of, hollow." _I felt Old Man Zangetsu's attention shift back to me. Overhead, the stars shone brightly; I took comfort in the fact that some of the constellations were familiar to me. After the war, I had taken Old Man Zangetsu's advice and gone stargazing, as well as watched a few sunsets. It was calming, and if Old Man Zangetsu's information was anything to go by, my inner world reflected that change. I wasn't sure how, but he sounded pleased, which was good enough for me. _"Ichigo, this is a second chance at a different life for you. Eventually, you will likely be pulled back to your own world, but until that time you should enjoy the peace this place has to offer."_

I sighed. _Okay, Old Man._

Hollow Zangetsu was strangely silent. Suddenly, I felt him materialize; he'd figured out how to materialize himself halfway through the war, when I got myself into situations where I couldn't protect myself or got overwhelmed. However, whatever power he used came from the same reserves as mine, so I lost energy twice as quickly when he was around.

"Zangetsu, what are you doing?" I hissed, getting to my feet, using the tree that I had been leaning against.

**"We're bein' watched, King," **the hollow replied tersely, summoning his blades. I rolled my eyes.

"First of all, I already knew that. Secondly, the fact that you don't recognize his magical energy is pretty stupid. I thought you were supposed to be better than me?"

Hollow Zangetsu turned back to face me, scowling darkly as his blade dissipated. **"Fine. But don't blame me when he guts ya."**

"He couldn't if he wanted to," I replied flatly. Then I spoke more loudly, addressing the trees to my right. "Leo, if you wanted to talk to me, you could do so in a less creepy way."

After a brief rustling of bushes, Leo walked out of the trees, looking remarkably calm given the situation, even going to far as to reach up to adjust his red tie. Immediately, Hollow Zangetsu had a blade at his throat.

**"What the hell were you doing, asshole?" **He hissed, eyes narrowed.

"Confirming my suspicions," Leo replied calmly, his hands dropping back to his sides. I bristled at his words, but turned to Hollow Zangetsu.

"Put your sword down, idiot, or I'll send you back to my inner world. Leo isn't a threat."

Hollow Zangetsu gave Leo a dirty look but stepped back, his blade vanishing.

Leo was silent for a moment before he looked at me. "You should know that the members of Fairy Tail usually refer to me as 'Loke'," he eventually said.

"Noted," I replied, giving nothing away. While Loke may not have been a physical threat, I doubted that he had come here just to chat about his name. Loke's eyes drifted away from my own, and I tensed.

"Your clothes are looking remarkably clean and whole," he commented. "Impressive, considering how bloody and torn they were earlier."

_Dammit._

"It's part of my abilities," I lied smoothly. "My magical energy connects to physical objects like my clothes. It's pretty convenient." Zangetsu moved to stand next to me in an unspoken kind of threat as I talked. Old Man Zangetsu was content to watch from my inner world, at least for now.

Loke's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "Really?"

"Yeah."

**"Whatever he says next ain't gonna be nice, King," **Hollow Zangetsu muttered. I could feel how eager he was to summon his blades, but for now he trusted my judgment. Ever since he'd been revealed as my true Zanpakutō, Zangetsu's sanity had seemed to make something of a comeback.

Really, it was amazing how far our relationship had come.

"That's fascinating," Loke said, each word cold as ice, "because every spirit I consulted in the Celestial Spirit World had never heard of Shinigami Magic or Hollow magic."

His gaze bore into mine, and a challenge hung in his words, sticking in the cool night air long after they'd been spoken. "They don't exist."

_Well, shit._

I went through a variety of options in my head in an instant, immediately dismissing any that involved violence because Lucy would hear about it and then I'd be in real trouble. Being on the run in territory I wasn't familiar with would be an extreme mistake, worse than getting myself trapped. Eventually, I settled on the only one that was going to pacify the furious spirit before me: the truth.

I glanced at Hollow Zangetsu. "I'm bringing the Old Man out too," I warned. He sighed.

**"So we're gonna tell 'im the truth?"**

"We don't have a choice."

Loke looked confused at the brief exchange, and even more so when Old Man Zangetsu suddenly appeared to my left, his black cloak billowing in a nonexistent wind. However, the spirit figured things out quickly.

"If any parts of your lie are to be believed," he said carefully, "then this would be your other soul piece, correct?"

"Yeah. Except I wasn't really lying."

"What do you mean?"

"I do have Shinigami abilities. And hollow ones, thanks to him." The last statement came with a nod towards Hollow Zangetsu. "And they are pieces of my soul; more specifically, Zanpakutō spirits—the spirits of my two blades."

Loke opened his mouth to speak, but I silenced him with a glare, letting authority slide cleanly into the look.

"I'm not done yet. See, I'm not lying about Shinigami magic and hollow magic; it's just that, where I'm from, magic is not called 'magic'. It's called Reiryoku, and usually only a select few of the living have any. Mostly, the dead have it, and those that use it manifest that power in blades, called Zanpakutō. They're called Shinigami."

"That's ridiculous," Loki said evenly, though the way his hands started to glow gold was more menacing than calm. "I won't let Lucy be threatened by a maniac like you."

**"Oi, stupid," **Hollow Zangetsu snapped. **"The only crazy person here is me, got that? And if ya attack King over there, yer gonna be one too. Not t' mention you'll be dead before ya take two steps."**

"Listen to him," Old Man Zangetsu said, his deep baritone rolling around the small clearing. "We do not intend to inflict harm on any of our comrades, least of all Lucy Heartfilia. She has done nothing but help us, and we intend to return the favor."

Warmth filled my chest when I heard my Zanpakutō spirits coming to my defense. There was something so calming about knowing that three separate parts of yourself were all thinking the same thing.

"Listen, Loke," I growled, "if you want to hear the truth, you're going to have to stop charging up your magic. It's going to wake the others up, and then we're really going to have a problem."

Loke's fists pulsed gold one more time, and then loosened as he deemed that I wasn't an immediate threat. His magical energy returned to its normal state, and I let out a slow breath of relief.

"Thanks."

"Explain everything," the lion spirit ordered, ignoring what I'd said. "And don't leave anything out."

A wry smile twisted my lips, though it was slightly bitter. "Trust me, it wouldn't make sense if I omitted anything."

* * *

It took me an hour to tell Loke everything, starting from the day Rukia Kuchiki had stepped into my room for the very first time and going all the way to when I'd stepped through the portal at Kisuke's lab.

Admittedly, I'd skipped over the details of when Aizen had tortured me. If I relived those memories, bad things would happen. I had that box in my mind for a reason, and if it ever broke I'd be royally screwed. I also skimmed over descriptions of my friends_—too painful__—_and details of the war because there were some things that even now I just couldn't bring myself to dwell on if I wanted to keep my emotions in check.

Luckily, the scar on my back convinced Loke that I was telling the truth more than anything else.

The scar stretched from my right shoulder blade to my left hip in a brutal, jagged silver line that cut through my skin with ugly intent. There wasn't much scar tissue; instead, each place where Aizen's torture devices had broken my skin was traced with silver, remnants of my Instant Regeneration that had never faded thanks to that mad bastard. Smaller scars branched off of the main one, forming an intricate pattern on my back, similar to a lightning bolt.

Loke had hissed in sympathy when he'd seen it; despite his mistrust, seeing a scar like that on anyone would probably warrant that reaction.

When I finished—and after my Zanpakutō spirits had chimed in anything they felt I'd forgotten—I sat against the tree in silence. At some point I'd returned to the position that I'd occupied before Loke arrived, and Loke had positioned himself a meter or two away. Zangetsu was leaning on the same tree I was, mimicking me almost exactly. Old Man Zangetsu was a step away, barely having moved.

Honestly, the guy looked like he was missing his flagpole.

"That's it," I said, my throat slightly raw after talking for so long. Aizen's torture had made sure that speaking would never be my strong suit. "You wanted the truth, and you got it."

Loke had a thoughtful expression on his face, and I was relieved to see no hostility in his body language. "Of all the things I thought you would say when I confronted you," he mused, "that was not one of them." He grinned crookedly, coming to a decision. "But as long as you leave Lucy to me, I'm fine with this."

**"Possessive little-"**

I clapped a hand over Hollow Zangetsu's mouth before he could say another word. "Thanks, Loke," I said over my Zanpakutō's muffled protests. "I'll keep an eye on Lucy when you're not around."

He offered me one last smile before disappearing, probably heading back to the Celestial Spirit World.

Hollow Zangetsu let out a long groan. **"Ya shoulda just let me hit 'im, and it woulda been over a lot faster."**

I shot him a baleful look. "He was either going to bring his suspicions to the rest of the group or fight me, and either one would've ended badly. I'm trying _not_ to be violent here, okay?"

My counterpart snorted. **"Is that why ya took one of the hardest missions on the request board? 'Cause ya wanted t' be _less_ violent?"**

"Shut up," I muttered, scowling. Arguing with a part of myself never worked, no matter how many times I did it.

"Ichigo, you should get your rest," Old Man Zangetsu advised, staring up at the stars with an unreadable expression on his face. "You have the opportunity to be among friends. Take it."

With those comforting words, both of my Zanpakutō spirits vanished; I felt them return to my inner world. A wave of tiredness ran through me, and I sighed. After wordlessly setting up a Kidō barrier that would wake me up if anything came too close—another souvenir of the war—I closed my eyes and let sleep take over.

Barely an hour later, something woke me up. Opening my eyes, I saw Natsu standing a few feet away, looking pensive.

"Natsu?" I asked, blinking the sleep away. I looked up at the stars; still nighttime. So what was the dragon slayer doing? "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be resting?"

"I had to apologize," he said quietly. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and I could practically see the way his guilt was dragging him down. "For . . . for being reckless, and stupid."

I frowned at him; I'd heard this talk too many times from too many Shinigami to count. The abnormally serious expression on his face told me all that I needed to know. But if it was that kind of guilt he was feeling, I needed him to get it off his chest. "What are you talking about?"

Natsu looked at the ground, looking strangely alone without Happy. Presumably, the talking cat was still sleeping. He tugged on his scarf as he spoke, as if making sure that it was still there.

"When I charged that bandit guy . . . it was a trap, and I didn't see it, and then you had to come in and save me and then you got hurt because of it and you nearly died—"

"Stop."

He paused, looking at me with confusion in his eyes. I sighed, rubbing one of my eyes and wishing that I could go back to sleep but knowing that I had to solve this problem first.

"There's no reason you should blame yourself," I said firmly. He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. "Listen. You didn't know about the trap, and neither did I. I would've saved you even if I had known about it, so don't go thinking that this was entirely your fault. I should've known that one of the bandits was still conscious enough to paralyze me, and I should've sensed that the real leader was in hiding." I smiled tiredly. "See? We've all fucked up. You can't blame yourself, Natsu. You did fine; you even took down that poison guy all on your own. You should be proud of that, instead of sulking about your mistakes."

"But you nearly died!" Natsu cried, getting straight to the heart of the matter. He was shaking slightly, dealing with emotions he had no experience with. "Because of my mistake, I nearly got you killed on your first mission and I—"

Natsu was cut off when he felt my arms go around him.

No, I was not a physical contact kind of person. But Natsu was clearly in need of support, the kind that a flying blue cat or simple words couldn't provide. On the train ride, during one of Natsu's bouts of sickness-induced unconsciousness, Lucy had told me about how Natsu had been raised by a dragon—_seriously, that didn't even surprise me at this point_—and then his "dad" had just disappeared one day. No doubt the guild master was a kind of father figure to Natsu, but the old man was just too distant to be a real influence on the kid.

So, fuck it. I'd do it. If I couldn't save any of the Shinigami during the war, I could sure as hell help one lonely dragon slayer.

"What are you doing?" Natsu asked, his voice muffled against my sweatshirt. He was shorter than me by a few inches, but I could feel that he had stopped shaking.

I pulled back, looking straight into Natsu's wide eyes and ignoring his previous question. "Don't you dare feel guilty about that mistake, Natsu. It'll take a hell of a lot more than one idiotic bandit to kill me, you hear? So just work on not being so impulsive next time, got it?"

Reassure him that I was stronger than I looked and give him something to do; that was the best way I knew of to help someone.

Mutely, Natsu nodded, and I knew our discussion was over. That was a good thing, too, because I could hear Hollow Zangetsu stirring in my mind. Strangely, the spirit actually slept when I did, though he didn't always wake up when I did. Natsu looked at me one last time—there was something I couldn't identify in his eyes, something sad—before he walked away, back towards where the others were sleeping.

I watched him go silently, wondering if anyone else could see just how lost the dragon slayer was. Once he was out of sight, I leaned back against the tree and took a deep breath.

Hopefully for the final time, I closed my eyes, praying that sleep would come quickly.

As if answering my prayers, it did.

* * *

_A/N And there you have it. The Natsu confrontation wasn't in my original plan . . . it just kind of happened. And before _any_ of you weird people ask, there is no way in hell I'm doing a Natsu/Ichigo pairing. Ichigo simply knows what Natsu is going through and decided to help._

**_Reviews:_**

**_jeya . mendoza: _**_Your support is appreciated, as is your patience. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!_

**_ultima-owner: _**_Ichigo found that out the hard way._

**_Bill Gates (guest): _**_I don't think Bill Gates has that much money, though the sentiment is impressive. For future reference, however, bribing me with imaginary money isn't going to work._

**_Not-Gonna-Update: _**_Thank you, and you're welcome!_

**_tragicmat1:_**_ if I haven't already explained this, check the author's note at the end of the previous chapter. Thank you for reviewing!_

**_general zargon: _**_I hope you find that this story is your cup of tea, and if it isn't, I'm happy you gave it a chance!_

_**hornet07: **See tragmat1's response.  
_

**_Summer's Vice:_**_ Thank you!_

_Thank you to everyone who decided to review, and I hope you guys continue to do so (along with all you silent favorites/followers; don't think I can't see you)!_

_The next chapter won't be out for a while; I simply had this one written already and decided to post it, plus school starts tomorrow for me (ugh)._

_-RoR_

_Please review._


	4. Chapter 4

_This story isn't as popular as _Rewind_, but I still like it, so I figured that since I had completed another chapter I might as well upload it. I hope you all enjoy!_

_Note:_

_Ichigo in his own mind._

**_"Zangetsu in Ichigo's mind" _"Zangetsu in the material world"**

_"Old Man Zangetsu in Ichigo's mind" _"Old Man Zangetsu in the material world"

_(9-14-14: I did some edits and hopefully I caught my previous spelling errors and lack of explanation about Ichigo's resistance to getting drunk.)_

* * *

Chapter 4

I woke up abruptly to someone shaking me and shouting, and out of sheer instinct I grabbed whoever it was and put him into a sleeper hold before I'd even fully opened my eyes. They felt strangely familiar, and as my senses returned I became aware of someone yelling my name.

"Ichigo, stop! Ichigo!"

Lucy's voice cut through whatever haze I'd been in and I realized that Natsu was choking in my arms, his hands weakly pulling at the arm that was constricting his blood flow. Hurriedly, I let go and stepped back, muttering an apology. Distantly, I was aware that the sun was rising, though it was clearly still early.

"Why did you wake me up?" I asked once I was sure I was thinking clearly. Lucy looked at me, askance.

"You were screaming," she said. "Yelling someone's name and you wouldn't wake up until Natsu started shaking you!"

My blood ran cold. It had been a nightmare, of course. I should've seen that coming, maybe warned Lucy and Natsu.

Nightmares had plagued me since the early stages of the war, and had been a large reason that I got less sleep than all of the other Shinigami in the fighting. When I did sleep, it had often been fitful and largely pointless, since I woke up even more tired than I had been when I had gone to sleep. The six months after the war had helped with that, so that I only got the terrible, twisted dreams every now and then, but when I did get them they were absolutely horrible. I supposed that I had been lucky that I hadn't gotten one sooner.

**_"Sorry, King. We tried t' keep the memories back but they just kept comin'."_**

_"We did as much as we could."_

_Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. I know it's not easy to keep my memories at bay._

My sword spirits were able to suppress most of my nightmares, further decreasing the frequency with which I had them, but occasionally one would slip through and I would be in for a long, long night.

"Whose name?" I asked, apprehension twisting throughout my body.

"Some person named Chad," Lucy replied, her eyes full of worry. "Ichigo, is something wrong?"

I resisted the urge to laugh. _So much is wrong, Lucy. You have no idea._

Instead, I shrugged, keeping a calm façade. "It's nothing. I had a friend named Chad back home, but he died. I'm over it."

"You didn't _sound_ over it."

My eyes hardened in warning to Lucy. "I'm. Over. It."

Lucy backed off, sensing that the topic was too raw to press right now.

Needless to say, the journey back to the guild was more than a little awkward.

* * *

The entire time we walked back after the second night, Lucy kept giving me strange looks. I came to the logical conclusion and knew that a confrontation was imminent, though I didn't know when or where it would take place.

When we were walking through Magnolia, Lucy confronted me in a way I didn't expect. As Natsu and Happy wandered on ahead, she pulled me aside and looked at me in a way that made me think _oh shit_. Yes, my suspicions had been right.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She demanded in a harsh whisper, probably thinking that Natsu could still hear her thanks to his weirdly good hearing.

"Tell you what?" I briefly toyed with the idea that she was referring to the nightmares. If that was the case, there was a clear reason why I wouldn't tell her; my nightmares were my business, not hers.

She crossed her arms. "Loke talked to me last night, before you woke up."

_Oh. Shit._

**_"Ya really thought Lion Boy wouldn't tell his wizard?"_**

_Well, I thought he would at least wait a little longer. This isn't really how I wanted this to happen._

_"Were you ever planning on telling Lucy the truth?"_

_Maybe, if the opportunity presented itself._

**_"That's yer version of a 'no', King."_**

I sighed, running a hand through my hair, only to have the orange strands fall right back into my face. "I'm guessing he told you about me."

"From another world? Why didn't you just say so! I'm a celestial wizard, you could've told me!"

_What can I say to calm her down?_

My people skills were more than a little bit lacking, and I found myself at a loss for words. "I . . . um . . . I didn't think you would believe me?" The upward tilt at the end of my sentence made it more of a question, and I winced. "I mean, the Celestial Spirit World is one thing but an entirely different, unconnected dimension is a little bit different."

She put her hands on her hips and glared. "You're ridiculous. Have a little trust; I'm a Fairy Tail wizard, and I wouldn't throw you out on the streets!"

The words "have a little trust" made me flinch, and I automatically thought about how many times other people had said those words to me right before they got themselves killed in terrible, brutal ways before I could go save them, and there was no way for me to really trust anyone but myself—and maybe Kisuke—because I knew what other people were capable of and there was just no—

"Ichigo, are you listening to me?"

I blinked, realizing that I'd spaced out again. "No."

Lucy sighed, pursing her lips and almost pouting but not quite. "Look, I understand why you didn't tell me, and I guess I wouldn't have believed it unless Loke told me. But you've gotta be honest, okay? Especially since you're living under my roof."

I swallowed, letting my expression go blank again. "Yeah, sure."

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, and anything else she was going to say was interrupted by a yell from a certain dragon slayer. I glanced past Lucy, back into the main street, and saw Natsu arguing with some black-haired guy—a wizard, judging from what I could feel. He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite remember his name.

**_"It's Gray, dumbass."_**

_Shut up. You know I'm bad with names and faces._

**_"Clearly."_**

Lucy groaned. "What now? We were so close to getting back to the guild without destroying something!"

Her statement made me raise an eyebrow. "Do you usually destroy something on missions?"

She looked at me, shocked at my apparent ignorance. "Our whole guild's reputation is based on destruction! It's practically the motto of Fairy Tail!"

_You're the one that told me everything I know. Don't act like this is my fault._

I frowned. "Isn't there some law against that, though? Like from that Magic Council or whatever?"

"They're pretty lenient with us because we're the highest ranked guild," Lucy answered, "but that doesn't mean the guild master likes doing the paperwork that results from all the damage Fairy Tail causes on missions."

"How much paperwork?" I asked out of curiosity. After all, I'd had to do a ton of paperwork during the war, more than I cared to admit, and it hadn't helped that some of the captains had decided to dump their work on me as well. Lucy shrugged.

"I don't know how much he actually does. When I first joined the guild, he just burned all of it."

I couldn't help but think of the time during the war when Shunsui had "accidentally" thrown his paperwork in the path of an oncoming Menos Cero after "tripping" over a "rock", like he hadn't been in the middle of Hueco Mundo during a battle in _sand_. I never did figure out how he managed to smuggle so much paperwork with him. Maybe he'd stashed it under that pink kimono he'd always worn.

Nanao had nearly had his head at that point, but the laidback captain had been as unapologetic as ever, consistently denying that he had done anything intentionally.

It didn't help that Matsumoto followed his example when it came to the piles of papers and files in her Division. Needless to say, Tōshirō had not been happy.

"Ichigo, you there?"

Lucy's fingers snapping in my face forced me out of my memories and I refocused on her, none too gently pushing her hand out of my personal space.

A minor explosion nearby stopped whatever response Lucy had planned, and I turned to see Natsu and Gray at each other's throats, dust settling around them from where a certain fiery fist had crashed into the ground as dragon slayer and ice mage grappled. The surrounding people had begun to stare, more than a few of them looking notably weary, as if this was a common event. I could hear a shopkeeper muttering about how he really couldn't afford more damage to his shop. As I watched, the shopkeeper went inside his building and closed the door, flipping the sign to "closed".

I scowled. Compared to the discipline exerted in the Gotei 13—which, admittedly, had been lax in more than a few places before the war forced everyone to listen to their superiors on pain of death by Aizen's forces—Fairy Tail was essentially lawless. The guild master, from what Lucy said, tried to keep his guild members mostly in line, but they had mostly free reign. Makarov apparently believed that rules that were too harsh would only staunch the growth of the members in the guild.

I could respect that philosophy; after all, I'd only gotten so strong by bending (and often outright breaking) rules. However, I couldn't see how pushing the limits of rule bending would benefit Fairy Tail, especially if the Magic Council was as harsh as Lucy made it out to be. No doubt the guild had been warned in the past about damages.

Natsu, after avoiding a retaliatory punch from Gray for his earlier stunt, grabbed the ice mage by the back of his white overcoat and sent him flying in the direction of the storefront Ichigo had just seen the owner walk into.

"Enough of this," I growled, my usually vast reserves of patience reaching their end.

With deceptive ease, I vanished from Lucy's side and appeared behind Gray, catching him and then unceremoniously dropping the disgruntled wizard on the ground. Somehow, between being thrown by Natsu and being caught by me, Gray had managed to strip down to his boxers, a fact that I elected to overlook. At this point, after dealing with the quirks of the Gotei 13, it would take more than a stripping habit to shake me.

I then used Shunpo to appear by Natsu, catching the dragon slayer's fist with his hand—not even reacting to the fire that coated Natsu's skin—and twisted, forcing Natsu to fall to his knees in an attempt to lessen the pain. I made sure not to twist too much, because Natsu was still a guild mate and an ally, so I didn't really want to hurt him.

"H—hey!" Natsu protested as Ichigo let go, confident Natsu was done roughhousing. "What was that for, Ichigo?"

"You and Gray shouldn't screw around here," I said flatly, including Gray in the glare I had directed at Natsu. "I can see that you two aren't exactly each other's biggest fans, but come on. Wait until you reach the guild before you destroy anything or the damages will come out of our reward money, and I'm sure Lucy wouldn't like that. Right, Lucy?"

The celestial wizard, who had come closer while I was speaking, looked caught off-guard. "Um, yeah."

"Ichigo is mean!" Happy declared from above, where he was circling his partner. I grit my teeth, fed up with the blue-furred cat. Somehow, he was almost as annoying as Kon had been, and that was saying something. Behind me, Natsu stood up, dusting himself off.

"Shut up, Happy," I growled.

"That service costs one fish!" The cat announced, hovering in the air on white wings that seriously misrepresented his personality.

Meanwhile, Natsu and Gray were staring each other down again, sparks practically flying between their hostile gazes as if I wasn't standing between them. The tension in the small square built until Lucy took a small step back, sensing that things were about to get a lot more violent. The townspeople followed her example as my hair shifted to shadow my eyes and my frustration bled into my Reiatsu, which was leaking out around me.

In the decisive moment, my spiritual pressure caused the stones beneath me to crack audibly. A split second later, as Natsu and Gray turned in my direction upon hearing the noise, the rest of my Reiatsu slammed down on them, forcing the two to their hands and knees. Even Lucy, who was standing a fair ways back, began to tremble and her breathing became noticeably more labored.

I reached out a hand and caught Happy as he fell from the sky, unable to keep flying from the force of my Reiatsu.

"W—what?" Natsu gasped from the ground, his eyes wide as sweat dripped from his skin. "What is this?"

Gray, on the other hand, had managed to make eye contact with me. I saw realization dawn in his expression right before he spoke. "Ichigo . . ."

Abruptly, I pulled my Reiatsu back in, much to Zangetsu's disappointment. In the ensuing silence, I spoke. "Are you ready to head back to the guild now, Natsu?"

"Yes," he muttered, staggering back to his feet. Gray followed his example. I glanced at both of them, expression hard, before I began walking in the direction of Fairy Tail. Natsu and Gray had clammed up, and I knew they wouldn't be telling anyone about what had happened any time soon. It was just in their natures.

The whole walk back, I pretended not to hear the townspeople whispering about me. Honestly, I could care less. At least they were slightly less overt about it than the Shinigami who had all but idolized me during the war.

Of course, that meant I saw the exact moments when that worship imploded in their minds when I couldn't save them in time.

The memory only made me walk faster.

* * *

In the next few weeks, I learned more about Fairy Tail and its members than I ever thought I would. There were three dragon slayers: Natsu, the fire dragon slayer, Gajeel, the iron dragon slayer, and Wendy, the sky dragon slayer. There were the Strauss siblings: Mirajane and Elfman, who both practiced takeover magic. I had found out that they had had a younger sister who had died some years back, and I saw no reason to pry into how that happened.

There was the S-Class mage Mystogan, a guy more mysterious than any member of the Onmitsukidō. He put everyone to sleep when he came into the guild, and while I was able to stay conscious I still didn't get a good look at his face before he left.

There was Erza, the most powerful female wizard in Fairy Tail next to Mirajane, and who bore the title "Queen of the Fairies". I could sense her power, and it was impressive. However, that didn't make me wonder any less why she wore armor all the time. It was somewhat disconcerting, especially after I saw her method of comforting others: slamming them into her chest. Due to the armor, the unfortunate victim was usually dazed or even knocked unconscious.

Then there was Cana, the most avid drinker I'd ever met that may have even outstripped Rangiku. She drank out of a _barrel_ like it was nothing, and seemed to be perpetually buzzed if not outright drunk.

Therefore, it was logical that the most interesting experience I'd had revolved heavily around Fairy Tail's heaviest drinker.

On my eighth day at the guild, I had been sitting at the bar later at night, casually drinking a glass of water while I wrote out some notes about Urahara's Senkaimon that may have helped me to figure out if I really had a way back to Soul Society. Thanks to the fact that I could write moderately well in English, I hadn't been worried about anyone being able to understand what I was writing save for that intelligent girl named Levy. That was the night Cana chose to try and get me drunk.

It was a night I wouldn't forget for a long time.

* * *

My eyes narrowed slightly as I tried to recall some of the Kidō formulas I had seen on the gate and as my mind reached back I tapped the pen against the counter absently.

That was when Cana made her move. She'd been casually encouraging me to drink more ever since I'd joined the guild with subtle hints and not-so-subtle suggestions. Apparently, it was her version of an initiation ritual to try and get me drunk.

So, she sidled up to me at the bar, for once without a barrel, and I immediately become suspicious upon seeing the twinkle in her eye. After stashing the notes I'd made in on of my many pockets, I sighed.

"What do you want, Cana?" As they typically did later at night, my manners flew out the window. She grinned at me.

"Ichigo, I challenge you to a drinking contest."

The entire guildhall went silent. Judging from the stares, this didn't happen very often.

"No way . . . did Cana just challenge that new guy to a drinking contest?" Someone whispered. I tried not to let my annoyance show at still being referred to as "new guy", despite the fact that I was stronger than anyone here and had been at the guild for over a week.

"I'm really not in the mood," I countered, thinking that I should head back to Lucy's apartment. The celestial mage had already left, saying she had something to do. I knew she was referring to her book (which she thought I didn't know about), and I had let her go since I felt no need to return before Lucy got her daily personal time. I knew from personal experience that Lucy got very crabby if anyone interrupted her time at home when she was least expecting it.

"Nah, you just don't know it yet," Cana insisted, grabbing my arm. I barely stopped myself from throwing her across the room, and I was surprised at her strength when she all but yanked me off the bar stood and led me over to a table.

**_"Oi, King. Why are ya jus' takin' this?"_**

_It's nothing serious. I'm sure she'll just give up if I do it and 'lose'._

**_"Yer gonna _****let _yerself lose at somethin'? Are ya insane? We've got a reputation t' hold up, idiot!"_**

With that simple declaration, Zangetsu had locked me into a position where I had no choice but to agree to (and actively participate in) Cana's drinking contest. If I didn't, I would never hear the end of it.

I just groaned quietly as Cana sat down across from me, the epitome of confidence.

"Why?" I muttered, rubbing my temple.

"Because I want to see if Fairy Tail's newest member is as strong as everyone says he is," Cana stated.

"What does that have to do with dri—"

"I have your drinks, Cana!" Mirajane declared brightly, appearing next to the table bearing two drays filled with mugs of . . . well, whatever it was that Cana drank. Honestly, it was too strong to be a regular drink if the smell was anything to go by.

"Thanks," Cana said, leaning forward and staring me down. "You ready, Ichigo?"

"I don't really have a choice, so sure," I replied lowly, ignoring the gathering of Fairy Tail members around the table I was seated at. I saw Natsu in the front, arms crossed and sulking slightly. He was annoyed that I hadn't accepted his challenge yet, but really I didn't want to fight Natsu before I got a real handle on my situation. Otherwise, I could alienate some of the guild members if I beat one of their stronger wizards without breaking a sweat.

"The rules of the competition," Cana announced, "are that the first person to pass out loses, and the guild members can also judge a winner if it's not obvious." She smirked. "Though it will be."

**_"She's got no clue."_**

_"Indeed. However, she has no knowledge of Ichigo's activities during the war."_

_Well, by the end of everything I could out-drink Matsumoto easily. I think Cana might take her alcohol slightly more seriously._

"Go!" Cana announced, and we both reached for our respective mugs.

What followed was the most intensive drinking competition I'd ever participated in, and during the war I'd taken part in quite a few once I'd hit drinking age. Cana's drinks weren't as concentrated as sake, but whatever they lacked in potency they made up for plenty in quantity. Every time I finished a mug, it was taken out of my hands by a smiling Mirajane and replaced with another in a never-ending cycle.

Cana was the first to show signs of being drunk as her speech slurred and her coordination became slightly skewed. At that point, all I felt was slight warmth throughout my body. With Zangetsu and Old Man Zangetsu helping to keep my mind functioning normally, the alcohol never really reached my brain. However, my limbs were starting to feel slightly heavy, and there was nothing I could do about that.

I lost track of how many mugs I emptied. Cana tried admirably, putting away more drinks than I thought a wizard was physically capable of and then some, but in the end she couldn't hold it.

With a groan that came from her rapidly numbing lips, Cana finally slumped forward, her eyes closing as the mug she held slipped from her hands and spilled over the table. The clatter echoed throughout the guildhall as the members looked on in shocked silence, mouths hanging open as they failed to comprehend that someone had just drunk _Cana_ under the table.

My head felt abnormally light, but I had two distinct advantages: my Shinigami resistance to nearly everything, and Zangetsu. For some reason, when I got drunk, it didn't affect him. In my first year of drinking, he had been the only reason I didn't get embarrassed in front of the adults: when I got too drunk to think clearly, Zangetsu took control and handled things from there. Of course, my body was still under the effects of alcohol, so even though Zangetsu would be thinking clearly he would still be staggering around and half-blind.

While I wasn't necessarily unable to think clearly, I didn't really trust myself to say anything right at the moment. Therefore, I stared at Cana, slowly set down the mug I had been drinking out of, and sighed, blinking to try and clear the slight blurriness from my vision.

"Well, that's that." I eyed the crowd balefully. "Is anyone planning on helping her?"

"You—you—you just beat Cana—at a—a—"

"No way, he just beat Cana!"

"Is he serious?"

I left the guild to its stuttering and pushed my way through the crowd, allowing Zangetsu to take control and retreating to the inner recesses of my inner world to try and purge the alcohol from my system.

On the bright side, Unohana had taught me some unique Kaidō tricks to help with hangovers and—if I did it quickly enough—getting drunk. Zangetsu was already on it, my body glowing slightly green under my clothes as my Reiatsu began cleaning out my system.

The entire time, Old Man Zangetsu grumbled about how foolish my decision had been. The Old Man simply couldn't understand why I would do something like that, and I saw no reason to explain it to him.

* * *

That night had gone down in Fairy Tail history, much to my annoyance. The next day, Cana had been out of commission with a hangover, and many of the guild members had been surprised to see me walking around as though nothing had happened the night before. In truth, I had a slight headache, but it was negligible in comparison to the hangovers I'd dealt with before Unohana had helped me.

Luckily, the excitement had died out eventually, and Cana hadn't taken any offense at being beaten. When she returned to Fairy Tail, she'd just smiled at me and said she wasn't going to lose to the same guy twice.

I tried not to think about what she meant by that.

As well as hanging around the guildhall and taking the occasional mission—none of which came even close to the first one I picked, and I handled them all quickly and easily with minimal damage—I would spar with my Zanpakutō. To do so, I had to leave the guild for the day and find a place far enough away that I wouldn't accidentally flatten anything with my Reiatsu that I released while sparring.

I also asked Lucy to help me learn more about magic, so at night I would often go to the local library with her and learn about Earthland and all its wizards had to offer. I'd also begun paying Lucy rent (and ignored her protests, though they had only held up for about ten seconds before she accepted the money), about 15,000 Jewel a month. Since I didn't eat much, and my abilities negated my need for new clothing, I wasn't putting a huge tax on Lucy's income. I also told her that if anything extenuating happened, I would add and extra 5,000 Jewel to my rent to cover for it. She agreed, and that was that.

This particular morning, I was sitting at my usual place at the bar, still writing down notes as they came to me. Natsu had crashed at Lucy's place the night before, so I'd wandered off and slept in the woods nearby, finding them strangely comforting compared to the cramped feeling that Lucy's apartment gave off.

When compared to the expansive sands of Hueco Mundo, anything was cramped. Unfortunately, I was going to have to deal with that feeling until I could feel comfortable in a normal setting again.

My writing was interrupted as two wizards suddenly burst through the guildhall's large doors, yelling something about there being big news. I couldn't remember their names, but they were definitely agitated. At the same time, I heard a distinct noise in the distance.

"What's that noise?" Wendy asked, stationed a few meters away at her table with Carla. I had been inexplicably relieved to find that the white cat was a _lot_ more logical and intelligent than Happy, though her aloof attitude rubbed me the wrong way; while ruder than Byakuya's had been in the beginning, it shared more than a few similarities.

"Sounds like bells," Lucy replied, glancing around.

"Yeah!" Elfman said, pumping a fist.

"That's awesome," Gray commented, glancing out the doors. Evidently, they knew exactly what was going on. I didn't like being in the dark, but I figured that I would wait until someone else explained things.

In the next second, the entire guild burst into celebration with the concerted cry of "Gildarts is back!"

_Who the hell is Gildarts?_

**_"Dunno, but they like 'im."_**

_"Presumably, he is a member of Fairy Tail, and a prestigious one at that."_

Lucy was mirroring my thoughts out loud. Mirajane, standing next to her, had a bright smile on her face as she cleared things up.

"He's the strongest wizard in Fairy Tail," she said.

"Wow, seriously?" Lucy replied, shocked. "I thought Erza was top dog around here!"

**_"Only 'cause ya haven't kicked her ass yet."_**

_And I'm not going to. Now be quiet; I'm trying to listen._

"All modesty aside," Erza answered, standing nearby and smirking, "I don't even hold a candle to him."

"I bet this guy must be the king of breaking stuff then," Lucy muttered. Luckily, no one seemed to have heard her.

As the celebrating continued, Lucy put a hand on her hip and frowned slightly. "It's great that he's back and all, but I don't understand why everyone's going totally nuts."

"Look at how happy they all are!" Wendy commented. Her feline companion was quick to add to that.

"They certainly are more unruly than usual."

"It's only natural they're excited," Mirajane explained. "He's been gone for quite a while. Three years, in fact."

"That's so long! What has he been doing?" Lucy asked, eyes wide.

"Well," Mira responded, "we have regular jobs and S-Class jobs, above those are SS-Class quests, and above those are jobs called decade quests."

"Decade quests?" Lucy repeated, her face paling as she took in the implications of Mirajane's statement.

"They are jobs that no one has been able to complete in less than ten years," Erza said, picking up where Mirajane had left off. "Hence the name 'Decade Quest'. Actually, Gildarts took on an even higher level job than that: a Century Quest."

"You've gotta be kidding!" Lucy exclaimed. "Who in their right mind would take on a job that lasts a hundred years?"

Erza's reply was short and to the point: "Him."

Distantly, I heard a voice declaring all citizens to prepare for a Magnolia Gildarts Shift, and wondered what that meant.

Carla, now hovering in the air on her wings, frowned. "I'm all for festive, but this is just ridiculous."

"They sure are excited," Wendy offered.

"What's a 'Magnolia Gildarts Shift' anyway?" Lucy wondered, adopting a thinking pose. Erza smiled.

"Step outside and see for yourself."

The ground shook tremendously as the houses and other buildings in Magnolia began moving in an awesome display of engineering. Lucy and Wendy had adopted looks of comical surprise, unable to believe what they were seeing. Even I was impressed, though I wondered why any town would do this for one man. Suddenly, Lucy's earlier comment was starting to make sense.

After a few more moments, the buildings and trembling stilled, revealing a single, wide path that led straight to the doors of the guildhall.

"Magnolia just split in two!" Lucy cried, freaking out for reasons I didn't understand.

"It's a precautionary measure for Gildarts' crash magic," Erza explained.

"Since he destroys everything that he touches," Mirajane continued, "it was better for everyone if he stays clear of their homes and businesses!"

She sounded way too happy about that, I realized.

"So he just walks right through them?" Lucy pressed, incredulous. "You modified the entire town just 'cause he's _clumsy_?!"

"He sounds amazing!" Wendy gushed, completely ignoring what Lucy had said.

Her cat, as ever, disagreed. "Yes, amazingly _stupid_."

As the man named Gildarts drew closer, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

_Zangetsu, Old Man . . . do you feel that?_

_"Yes. It's not Reiatsu; it's this world's equivalent."_

**_"Damn. Whoever this guy is, he's got magical energy that's off the fuckin' charts."_**

_"He is definitely strong, Ichigo. He would likely present you with quite a challenge."_

I frowned speculatively while mentally comparing the energy I could feel from emanating Gildarts to my own. During the war, I had become adept at this, so it wasn't difficult.

_I'm stronger in terms of power, but . . . I think he isn't the strongest wizard in Fairy Tail just because he's strong. He's likely extremely talented at fighting as well._

I felt a wave of approval from Old Man Zangetsu at that assessment. Zangetsu just snorted.

**_"Whatever, King."_**

The man himself suddenly strode through the doorway and stopped, temporarily silhouetted by the sunlight flooding in behind him. When the light cleared, I could see a tall, broad-shouldered man with brown-red hair slicked back down to his neck, sideburns, and the shadow of a beard on his face. He was also muscular, and wore a tattered brown high-collared cloak that sported two shoulder plates. For a few tense seconds, he stood there, glancing around without moving his head. Then he breathed in deeply.

Instead of saying anything, the man simply sighed, looking strangely upset.

The moment was disturbed when Natsu burst onto the scene, looking excited.

"C'mon, you old geezer," he declared. "Let's throw down!"

Elfman looked affronted. "That's no way to treat a man!"

"Welcome home," Mirajane offered as Gildarts walked past her, still with that vaguely put-out air that I couldn't find a reason for. The guy was home, after all. Why wasn't he happier? Usually, Shinigami returning to Soul Society after long months in Hueco Mundo were ecstatic. If this guy had been gone for three years, he should've been doing something more than . . . well, nothing.

"He's the most powerful guy in the guild?" Lucy wondered aloud. Apparently, she couldn't sense the faint aura that surrounded Gildarts; it wasn't menacing, but it held absolute power.

"Uh, sorry to bother you miss, but I'm looking for a guild that used to be around these parts called Fairy Tail," Gildarts said, speaking to Mirajane who was a good head shorter than he was.

I tried not to groan at his words.

_Does he seriously not recognize the place?_

_"According to Lucy, they did remodel after the Phantom Lord attack."_

_Still. This is ridiculous. What else could this place be?_

My Zanpakutō had no answer for that.

"This is it!" Mirajane replied, still with her constant air of happiness that would rival Orihime's. "Remember me? Mirajane?" She pointed to herself, and something in her words must've sparked Gildart's memory because shock flooded his features.

"_Mira_?" He repeated. "Wow. You sure have grown up a lot, little girl. And did you change some stuff around the hall too?"

This time, I actually did groan, and banged my head into the bar for good measure. Gildarts was undoubtedly strong, but clearly he was more oblivious than Keigo.

_And he'd come in looking so serious, too . . ._

"He really didn't notice the changes from outside?" Lucy commented, raising an eyebrow.

"Gildarts!" Natsu called, appearing at the top of the stairs from wherever he had gone off before.

"Natsu!" The new arrival replied, grinning. "Now there's someone I recognize!"

"Good ta see ya!" Natsu shouted, jumping into the air with the clear intention of hitting Gildarts. "Now let's party!"

The only warning Natsu got of Gildarts' intentions was a slight narrowing of Gildarts' eyes. Then the older wizard had plucked Natsu out of the air, spun him around enough times to make anyone dizzy, and flung him up into the ceiling hard enough to leave a Natsu-shaped impression that Natsu subsequently found himself stuck in.

"Not now, kid," Gildarts drawled, looking utterly unconcerned with Natsu's attack. Lucy openly gaped, and even I raised an eyebrow, making sure to remember that moment for future study. The smallest detail could reveal someone's fighting style, and it wouldn't hurt to know that of Fairy Tail's strongest wizard.

"He's still so awesome!" Natsu declared, still stuck to the ceiling.

Gildarts was looking around. "I see a lot of new faces around here . . . a lot happened while I was gone, apparently."

"Gildarts!" Makarov called from his position on top of the bar near me. Gildarts walked over. "How'd the job go?"

Gildarts hesitated a moment before answering with a loud laugh and then, after abruptly becoming serious, saying, "no good. Way too much for me."

The entire guild was thunderstruck, and I could hear people comment.

"No way. But that's Gildarts!"

"Failed?"

"He's joking, right?"

"I can't believe he'd just give up like this," Gray said, as surprised as his guildmates.

"I guess it takes a big man to admit defeat," Elfman commented.

"I know what you're thinking over there and you should stop," Erza snapped, her statement clearly directed at Lucy. I could guess where her train of thought had gone; I had been thinking along similar lines. If Gildarts couldn't finish this quest, but I was arguably at a level near his, would I be able to finish it?

"There's no way," Erza finished. Immediately, Lucy began to vehemently deny Erza's accusation.

"I see," Makarov was saying. "The job was too tough."

"Forgive me for bringing shame to the guild," Gildarts responded, his tone serious.

Makarov crossed his arms. "No. You've only brought yourself home in one piece." He grinned. "That's no small feat. As far as I know, you're the only one who's made the journey home alive!"

Gildarts smiled in response. "Thanks, Boss. Now I gotta get back home and start to actually _feel_ alive. Rest my weary bones. Oh, Natsu," Gildarts added, throwing the words over his shoulder. "Stop by later. I brought somethin' back for ya." He chuckled after those words, but didn't elaborate. Natsu, for his part, looked excited at those words.

"Well, I'm outta here, you guys," Gildarts finished, walking forward.

Straight into a wall.

Instead of what I had expected to happen, the wall began to glow bright white as Gildarts simply kept moving forward, until the entire thing blew apart into little tiny cubes that hung suspended in the air before crashing to the ground.

_So that's what his crash magic is._

_"It's a powerful magic."_

**_"I wonder how it works on people. Do they split apart? Miniaturize? Get cut up into tiny little—"_**

_That's enough, Zangetsu. I'd rather not think about that stuff right now._

**_"Fine. But ya know that we should visit 'im later."_**

_Yeah. I'm thinking after Natsu does; something tells me that whatever Gildarts has to say to him is for Natsu, and Natsu alone._

I was aware of Natsu also announcing his departure and using a flame-enhanced fist to break his own wall, following Gildarts' example. More than a few people looked upset at this development, but there wasn't a lot they could do about it.

Through Happy, I learned about how Gildarts and Natsu had become so close. It was an interesting tale, and I could see how it forged such a lasting bond.

_It seems that Natsu has a father figure after all_, I mused, watching Natsu's retreating figure.

_"True, but Gildarts is apparently often out on quests."_

**_"I don't see why yer so interested in this, King. He's just a kid, an' he isn't all that strong."_**

_Compared to me, no. But he's got potential._

_"What do you plan to do?"_

_I dunno. I was a big brother to Yuzu and Karin, I guess. I could probably do the same thing here._

_"I believe that would help you as well as Natsu."_

_What do you mean?_

Old Man Zangetsu gave no answer.

_Dammit. I hate it when you get cryptic, Old Man!_

**_"You an' me both, King."_**

"Hey, Ichigo. Looks like you've got some competition."

"Eh?" I looked up and saw Lucy staring at me, her arms crossed. "What do you mean by competition?"

"You saw how strong Gildarts was," she pressed. "I bet he's stronger than you!"

I rolled her words around in my head for a moment, taking the time to reorganize my thoughts after the discussion I'd had with my Zanpakutō. Then I shrugged and turned back to face the bar, throwing back a one-word response.

"Maybe."

Unfortunately, the words had caught the interest of Erza. "What are you suggesting, Lucy?" She asked. "Ichigo wouldn't stand a chance against Gildarts."

**_"Yeah right."_**

I took a deep breath, knowing that Erza meant no offense by her words. To her knowledge, I was strong, but not much more so than Natsu, whom Erza was capable of beating. Therefore, I was on the official list of People Who Would Get Their Asses Kicked by Gildarts in a Fight.

To Erza, it was probably a very, very long list.

"Probably not," I admitted easily, swinging back around to face the Queen of the Fairies.

**_"Oh, come on! Why not jus' show 'em all that yer stronger than they could ever be?"_**

_Because that's not what I'm here to do. It'll be easier to fade into the background of things if I don't have a reputation even bigger than Erza's. If I'm the center of attention, I'll never get anything done._

Erza raised an eyebrow. "Probably?"

I shrugged, putting on a façade of nonchalance. "I don't know how strong he is for sure," I elaborated, "and I'm not entirely sure how his magic works, so I can't say for sure. Although," I added, "I get the feeling he'd kick my ass in a fight."

Zangetsu's annoyance knew no limits in that moment.

Erza regarded me for a few seconds longer, and then decided that what I said made sense. Mirajane soon distracted her, and after sending a warning look to Lucy—she'd nearly blown my cover then and there, which we'd have to talk about—I went back to taking notes, entirely aware of the piercing gaze Makarov was sending my way.

* * *

_A/N And that's a wrap for today! I got Cana's drinking contest, Gildarts' arrival, and a little suspicion in the Fairy Tail wizards in one chapter, so I think today was a good day, ne?_

**_Reviews:_**

**_XiauWing: _**_That's what I intend!_

**_hornet07: _**_That's an appropriate reaction, I'd say. As for why Loke fit the bill of "suspicious guy", it's because he would have access to that one spirit whose name escapes me that knows a whole ton of shit and could tell Loke whether Ichigo was telling the truth or not. And since Loke is fiercely protective of Lucy, he would definitely find out all that he could and then confront Ichigo about it. And I like his character, but he won't be that important in this story. Like the Fairy Tail manga, he's important in the beginning and not so much so later except as a fighter._

**_ultima-owner:_**_ hard to tell. That guy's really unpredictable._

**_Summer's Vice: _**_Really? Huh. I would've thought that someone out there would've thought of it too. Ah, well, being first in writing usually never hurts anyone._

**_jcampbellohton:_**_ Closer to 85%, really. Ichigo's a paranoid guy, he just doesn't want to admit it._

_Well, that was it for reviews. Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to write me feedback, I really appreciate it! Also, it's nice when I get reviews for chapters I've already posted! While I won't respond to those reviews (unless they have a necessary question), they're still fun to read!_

_Until next time,_

_-RoR_

_Please review._


	5. Chapter 5

_Whaaaaaat? Two chapters so soon? Well, let me just say that this chapter was so epic and fun to write that I couldn't let it rest until I finished it and put it out here for you guys to read._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Chapter 5

I took a deep breath of the cool evening air, steeling myself for what I was about to do. Behind me, a lonely lamp flickered with dying light, not at all comforting. After mentally confirming with myself that I was ready, I knocked solidly on Gildarts' wooden door. Judging from the energy permeating the surrounding area, I could easily tell that Gildarts was home, so I felt no nervousness about possibly knocking on his door when he wasn't there.

"Come in," a voice called from inside, sounding both weary and strong at the same time. It was a tone I was familiar with; after all, it was one I had adopted as well during and after the war.

Pushing the door open, I took in Gildarts' house. It was modest, with regular furnishings and a comfortable atmosphere. A kettle hung over a small fire pit that was burning gently, and the floor and walls were simple wooden affairs with a small tapestry hung in the recess of one wall. For a guy who rivaled Kenpachi in strength, Gildarts certainly had a different way of showing it. I supposed that if he was gone on missions so often, it made sense that his house wouldn't be all that grand. After all, if he barely spent any time in it, it made little sense to make it extravagant.

Gildarts himself was seated on a wooden rocking chair, staring at the wall. His gaze slid over to me as I entered, however, and stayed there.

He continued staring at me for a few minutes, and I saw no reason to break the silence. The result was an awkward stand-off-ish type of meeting which greatly annoyed Zangetsu, who kept telling me to say something in my head. Finally, Gildarts sighed.

"You look familiar, kid. Have I seen you before?"

I took another step forward and gently closed the door behind me, and then leaned on it with my arms crossed, though I made sure not to make the motion seem threatening. "Yeah. I'm one of the newer members of Fairy Tail, Ichigo Kurosaki."

"Oh, I see. Nice to meet you; I'm Gildarts Clive. When did you join the guild? I've never seen you before today, I don't think." He was actually genuinely curious, not simply making small talk.

"About two months ago," I answered easily. He raised an eyebrow.

"Now that I think about it, I think I saw you at the bar. Your hair's pretty distinctive."

Instinctively, I grit my teeth. "Yours isn't exactly a normal color either," I ground out.

**_"Relax, King. He isn't tryin' t' be insultin'. "_**

He grinned. "Point taken. But what brings you here? If you're looking for Natsu he left a long time ago."

I knew that much. I'd sensed his magical energy retreating from Magnolia, but didn't really worry about it. Whatever Natsu was doing, it shouldn't be too reckless.

Hopefully.

"I'm not looking for Natsu," I admitted, calming down. "I just wanted to talk to you about some things."

"What's got you so interested in me?" Gildarts inquired. "I'm not that interesting of a guy, really."

"You're the strongest wizard in Fairy Tail," I pointed out.

"That'll change."

My eyes narrowed fractionally. "You're thinking about Natsu."

Gildarts cocked his head. "For a new member of Fairy Tail, you're a remarkably perceptive guy." _And blunt_, Gildarts seemed to say with just his expression. I shrugged.

"Call it a talent. Anyway, I just wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?"

I grinned crookedly. "Care for a spar?"

Gildarts stared at me for a good five seconds before bursting into laughter, having to rest his hands on his knees at the risk of falling out of his chair. The entire time, I stayed still, though I did let some of my annoyance seep into my expression. Really, no matter how weak I looked, Gildarts should've known better than to completely dismiss anyone.

I had my reasons for challenging Gildarts to a spar instead of just talking, and the main one was a reason I had used over and over again during my time as a substitute Shinigami. Fighting with someone always gave me a deeper understanding of that person, a more detailed connection with him or her than what I could achieve with nothing more than words.

Plus, I wanted Gildarts on my side. If there was anyone I wanted to tell about my situation—and what to do about my excessive amount of power—it had to be the strongest wizard in the strongest guild in Fiore. Plus, from what I understood, Gildarts was an honest guy; his role as a father figure to Natsu only cemented my faith in that assumption.

Finally, Gildarts calmed down, wiping one of his eyes. "Whew. For a second, you sounded exactly like a younger Natsu. I thought you asked me to spar with you."

**_"Is this really such a weird thing for 'im? Man, he must get so fuckin' bored."_**

"I did."

Gildarts looked at me and frowned. "Kid, I respect the fact that you have the guts to ask me this, but there has to be someone you would benefit more from sparring with."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. "There isn't. You're the only one in Fairy Tail who could possibly match me." I opened my eyes, let some of the steel that I'd hidden away slide back into them, allowed some of the age I'd gained during the war to seep into my expression. "No one else would stand a chance."

_And I need you to understand_, I added silently. _Because if you're freakishly powerful, I need to figure out exactly how powerful that is, and disguise my own abilities in accordance with that._

"Those are big words, kid," Gildarts commented seriously, his expression becoming grave. "Are you absolutely sure you can live up to them?"

"Yeah." I let my eyes wander the room, but they inevitably returned to Gildarts' face in a piercing gaze. "When can we spar?"

Gildarts sighed. "You really want to go through with this . . ." he muttered, shaking his head. "Fine. We can spar at the guildhall in two days, I just need to get my prosthetics looked at and rest."

Of course, I'd noticed his missing arm and leg the moment I walked in—the flow of magical energy to those limbs was slightly obstructed, though incredibly it appeared to still be channeled through the wooden counterparts—so I wasn't surprised at those words. However, I couldn't agree about the location.

"No," I said firmly. "We can't fight at the guildhall."

"You don't want anyone watching?"

I smiled thinly. "That's partially it. I also don't think that anyone save Makarov _could_ watch." I took a moment to think, and then continued. "There's a clearing a ways out in the woods that I use to train. I think it would work."

"How far out in the woods?" Gildarts asked mildly. My grin took on a darker cast.

"A few kilometers. I'll meet you at . . . three o'clock in two days' time."

He nodded wordlessly, his frown slightly more pronounced than it had been. Apparently, the distance had caught him off-guard.

Leaving him to stew over that information, I walked out, listening to the excited shouting of Zangetsu in my head. My hollow side was incredibly happy over the fact that I would actually be fighting someone, and someone who was supposed to be unbelievably strong at that.

* * *

The "clearing" as I called it was massive, stretching at least half a kilometer in all directions and surrounded by a thick wall of trees. Craters dotted the grassy landscape, and the entire area looked as though a giant had stomped on it, pushing the grass completely flat. Trees that used to stand in the now clear space were now nothing more than blasted trunks, sitting forlornly against the backdrop of their surviving counterparts. A fair portion of the clearing hadn't been there before I started using it as a place to train.

The sun shone down, the sky dotted with a few clouds. However, I could see a storm front rolling in that hopefully wouldn't hit until after the spar; while I could fight in any condition, I preferred friendly matches to be fought in the best possible conditions so that I didn't accidentally decapitate my opponent.

It had happened once before.

**_"Oi. No thinkin' 'bout that. The guy knew the consequences of challengin' ya like that, an' he accepted them."_**

_"Your guilt is proof that his death was not intentional, Ichigo. Now, you must focus on the moment. Gildarts is strong, and he will require your full attention."_

_I know, Old Man. Are you guys ready?_

**_"Hell yeah!"_**

_"Of course, Ichigo."_

Gildarts was standing about ten meters away from me, taking in the scenery. We'd walked over in silence, with me taking the lead and making no effort to talk other than to give directions. Gildarts seemed comfortable with that, though as we walked I could see him looking at me critically, probably searching for any signs of nervousness or regret.

He didn't seem to find any.

"Quite a place you have here," he commented slowly, turning back to face me. He indicated the craters. "What happened there?"

I shrugged carelessly. "I got a little careless."

He frowned. "Now that I think about it, you never actually told me what kind of magic you use. Is it caster or holder type?"

"I'll tell you that if you return the favor," I answered. He shrugged, his cloak accentuating the motion.

"Easy enough. I practice caster-type crash magic, which greatly enhances my strength and destroys anything I come into contact with. I can also use disassembly magic, which will nullify most magic attacks and split objects into pieces. I'm also no good at holding back." The last few words were said as an implicit warning, as though Gildarts was still trying to get me to reconsider. When I gave no indication that I would, he crossed his arms.

"Alright then. What's your magic, Ichigo?"

"I practice holder-type sword magic," I answered easily. "My blades give me enhanced strength and speed, as well as a powerful set of energy attacks."

"Blades?" Gildarts repeated. He looked around almost comically, obviously searching for them as though he expected the blades to be lying around somewhere in the nearby area. "What? Like swords?"

With a smirk, I materialized both of my Zanpakutō's blades, with the trench knife sheathed at my waist and the cleaver across my back.

"Yeah," I replied, crossing my arms and smirking. "'Like swords' is a pretty good way of putting it."

"So it's requip magic," Gildarts summarized, sounding confident in his conclusion. I shook my head, drawing the cleaver and letting the bandages unravel, revealing the intimidating black blade that I then rested on my shoulder in a pose so casual I didn't really realize I was doing it.

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

I lifted my shoulder and then let them drop in a casual shrug. "You'll find out soon enough. Or do you not want to spar?"

Gildarts grinned, sensing the challenge in my words. No matter how nervous he was about accidentally crushing me, he was clearly the type of person to enjoy a challenge, especially by a determined opponent.

"I see. Well then, let's begin this spar." He set his feet, adopting a defensive stance that could easily switch to attack. When I made no move, he frowned. "Attack me, Ichigo. You're the one who wanted to spar."

I didn't move. "Look. I understand that you have a high opinion of your abilities, which from what I can see is well founded. But—"

Using Shunpo, I vanished from where I had been standing and appeared behind Gildarts, allowing the tip of my blade to rest at the base of his neck.

"I'd drop whatever restrictions you've put on yourself," I finished, my tone mild. I wasn't egging Gildarts on just to humiliate him; I wanted an earnest fight, and this was how I was going to get it. Otherwise, this spar was nothing more than pointless.

After another burst of Shunpo, I reappeared several meters away, Zangetsu resting on my shoulder once more. Gildarts was staring at me, rubbing the spot on the back of his neck where my blade had been moments before.

"Your speed is impressive," he admitted. "I've never seen magic like it before." His hand dropped to his side and he cracked his neck. "Very well. If you want a fight, Ichigo, I'll be more than happy to give it to you."

I sensed the rise in Gildarts' magical energy and grinned, feeling Zangetsu's bloodlust bleed into my own as it always did before a battle I heavily anticipated.

"Be careful, Gildarts," I warned, adjusting my grip on Zangetsu. "I'm not entirely sure of my own strength."

And then I struck, closing the distance between us in a single Flash Step and bringing Zangetsu down on Gildarts, the blade's edge intentionally dulled with a coating of Reiatsu so that I wouldn't accidentally decapitate Gildarts or cut off one of his limbs.

Gildarts brought his arm up in an instinctual block, and I was forced to disengage as his crash magic surged up, exploding away from him in a brilliant white flash. Not wasting a second, I pushed off the air and flew at Gildarts again, circling around him so quickly that I left afterimages of myself in my wake, completely indistinguishable from the real me.

Gildarts stayed still, his eyes narrowed and his attention focused all around him as he defended himself against my all-angles attack, mingling his crash magic with his physical blows and using it to blast me away if I lingered for a fraction of a second too long.

Taking advantage of an opening in Gildarts' defense, I shot into the air, preparing to bring Zangetsu down on his head. To my surprise, Gildarts caught the blow in one hand and the ground beneath him shattered after a split second of hesitation, effectively cushioning the blow with a remarkable display of magical ability. At the same time, more crash magic was directed my way, and with Gildarts holding onto Zangetsu I was forced to take it.

I felt two of my ribs cave in with the force of the blow that had managed to blast through my Hierro almost instantly, a true testament to its potency and power. After taking a moment to heal the wounds with Instant Regeneration, I brought Zangetsu to bear, its tip stretching out to the side. Gildarts watched, ready, as I began channeling Reiatsu into the cleaver, so that blue energy swirled behind it in a raging maelstrom. Then I swung it forward, uttering the two words that were capable of bringing more destruction to bear than any other single-blade attack.

"Getsuga Tenshō."

The wave of blue energy shot out in front of me in a crescent shape, charging through the air at intense speeds towards Gildarts, hovering a meter above the grass and crackling with power.

Gildarts set his feet, his eyes narrowing as he brought his arms up, palms facing the attack. His magical energy rose, until a blurry white aura surrounded him, and then a net of white energy sped out of his hands, completely encompassing my Getsuga Tenshō and going _through_ it, until the entire attack was separated into little cubes. It then split into thousands of separated cubes and broke apart, rendered completely useless in the face of Gildarts' disassembly magic.

I'd launched the attack to see just how much power Gildarts could handle, and I'd gotten my answer.

**_"Looks like ya can up the ante, King."_**

_I know._

"That was an impressive attack," Gildarts said in the ensuing silence, probably guessing that I was willing to pause in the fighting. "What did you call it? Gensaga Tesho?"

"Getsuga Tenshō," I corrected. "Honestly, I wasn't expecting you to be able to block it."

"Hmph. You've got a lot of power for a new recruit. I guess I'm going to have to take this seriously."

"That's what I suggested from the start."

Gildarts grinned, and the aura of power around him increased tenfold, so much so that the ground beneath him, already shattered, began to crack even more.

"Prepare yourself, Ichigo Kurosaki!" He yelled, his resemblance to the attitude of Kenpachi almost scary in that instance.

Immediately after he uttered those words, Gildarts let loose with an impressive display of crash magic, headed straight for me. Cursing, I used Shunpo to avoid the hits, knowing that they would severely damage me if they made contact; the first blow was a good example of that. I continued to dodge, unable to find a hole in Gildarts' defense like the one I had seen earlier, and all I could manage at my current level was a series of small Getsuga Tenshō designed to slip past Gildarts' guard before he even noticed them.

Unfortunately, Gildarts was a lot more experienced with combat than I had given him credit for. My weaker attacks were nothing more than annoyances to him, and he brushed them off without trouble.

I fired off another, more powerful Getsuga Tenshō and, as Gildarts tore it apart with a burst of Disassembly magic, followed it with another, and another.

I saw Gildarts' eyes widen a moment before the second and third attacks slammed into him, resulting in a massive explosion of blue and white energy that mingled until it dispersed into a cloud of dust, obscuring my opponent.

Since Gildarts' power was still going strong, I knew those last attacks hadn't really done that much; they weren't my strongest Getsuga Tenshō variations, and Gildarts was "durable" personified.

Sure enough, as the dust cleared, I could see Gildarts, his arms raised to protect his face. He'd been pushed a good seven meters back, the deep ruts in the ground illustrating how he'd tried to stand firm only to be pushed back anyway. His forearms were also burned from the energy that made up my attacks, but as he lowered them I saw that he was mostly unhurt. He wiped his mouth and grinned.

"Impressive, but you can't expect me to take an attack like that without returning the favor."

His hands glowed white, and then I found myself on the receiving end of a powerful crash spell that I couldn't avoid because it covered the entire clearing. Grunting, I felt my ribs give way all over again, and I felt my left arm break at the bicep and dislocate at the shoulder with a sickening noise and a burst of agony that made me grit my teeth.

"Son of a bitch," I growled harshly, falling to one knee and holding my left arm, knowing instinctively that it was a messy break. I could _feel_ shards of bone poking around places in my arm with painful bursts of fire.

"Ah, sorry," Gildarts called, seemingly genuinely apologetic. "I tried to warn you that I'm no good at holding back."

"I can see that," I said, taking a deep breath and focusing. Slowly, I stood up. "Looks like I'm going to have to get serious as well."

"C'mon, kid. I respect your determination, I really do, but with an injury like that you need to head back to the guild and get it checked out before it becomes permanent."

I let a small smile stretch across my lips and channeled most of my remaining spirit energy to my wounds, watching Gildarts' reaction from the shadows of my bangs the entire time.

His eyes went impossibly wide as he saw my arm pop into place and then abruptly straighten out with several audible cracks, and then confusion flooded his features as bone-white material gushed from my skin around my arm and ribs and then vanished a moment later, leaving no trace of the injuries. Even my clothes, which had been ripped and torn in the attack, were regenerating.

"What kind of magic is that?" He asked quietly. "That's _not_ caster-type. I've travelled most of Fiore and nothing I've seen comes close to what you're capable of; no one should be able to heal that quickly."

"I'll tell you after," I said, absently shaking out my left arm and rolling the shoulder to make sure everything was in working order. Then I glanced at Gildarts. "I guess I'd better undo the seal I have on my powers, or your crash magic is going to make mincemeat out of me."

The surprise on his face was a lot more satisfying than I thought it would be. "You've been fighting me this entire time with your abilities _sealed_?"

"Yeah. I wanted to see how strong you were, and I got my answer."

Wordlessly, I mentally reached down to the crescent-moon-shaped seal on my chest and undid it in an instant, taking a deep breath as the power that it had contained surged through me in an unstoppable wave.

The wind whipped through the air around me as my Reiatsu surged, breaking out of my control for just a moment and causing Gildarts to momentarily choke. Then I reigned it back in, but its echoes remained in the cloud of malice that always hung around me when I got serious.

"Let's go for round two, Gildarts."

His power surged in response, and I flew at him, already charging a full-strength Getsuga Tenshō that blew him back, off his feet. Upon landing, he coughed and staggered to his feet, glancing at the holes in his cloak.

"I guess the 'standing still' strategy won't work for you," he mused. He glanced at me. "Now I understand. You're even more of a physical fighter than Natsu; your strength comes not only from your blade, but from yourself."

We exchanged a few more blows, with him still managing to bruise me severely with incredibly well timed crash spells that took advantage of the normally impenetrable edifice of my defense. My Hierro and Blut Vene, now strengthened thanks to the release of the seal, withstood most of the damage, but each of his hits still bruised me, and if I hadn't had Instant Regeneration at the ready those smaller injuries would've compounded into a series of much more serious ones.

_Damn, this guy is powerful. Hell, he might be even stronger than Kenpachi was._

**_"Challengin' him was the best idea you've had since we got here!"_**

Zangetsu's voice rang with undisguised glee, and I could tell that he was ecstatic to have his powers being used without limiters or seals.

Gildarts was doing an incredible job of mixing disassembly magic into his normal crash spells to completely nullify my energy attacks, so I was forced to rely on my blades and hand-to-hand in order to inflict damage. Luckily, I had learned long ago how to channel my Reiatsu into my fists to augment my attacks, and Gildarts was visibly affected every time I landed a punch, though not as much as I would've liked.

He was even able to catch my punches in one hand and counter with the other, typically sending me flying back with a bruised chest and a damaged ego.

I was moving at the high speeds of Shunpo, further increased by my unsealing, but Gildarts was still keeping up with me through sheer instinct, his hands moving even before his eyes registered my attacks.

More than once, he caught Zangetsu and I was forced to let go of the blade lest I be hit by a fully powered crash spell, which, even with my increased strength, would do severe damage. And though I had enormous Reiryoku reserves, I didn't want to waste my energy on Instant Regeneration all the time; Zangetsu was a berserker style fighter, but I wasn't. I would then launch a series of punches and kicks that gave Gildarts no choice but to let go of Zangetsu. In one instance, I grabbed the blade in mid-air and managed to use it to slice Gildarts' forearm, drawing first blood.

Nearly every time I went in for an attack with my sword, Gildarts countered with a burst of crash magic, and so went on the fighting. If I managed to land a solid blow, Gildarts would simply shatter the ground beneath him to cushion the impact, and then his magic would automatically reach out to attack me. The bones in my hands had already been broken at least three separate times from a hesitation a half second too long, so I was becoming much more careful in my attacks.

I darted forward, sweeping Zangetsu at Gildarts' legs while simultaneously flipping and aiming a Reiatsu-enhanced kick at the man's throat. Gildarts blocked both with his hands, but I used my free hand to draw my trench knife—which up until this point I had kept sheathed with the hope that it would slip Gildarts' notice, which apparently it had—and used the sharpened edge to slice a deep cut across Gildarts' chest before I was blown away by his magic. After healing the resulting bruises, I looked up to see Gildarts holding his chest, blood running over his hand. I had decided against dulling the trench blade's edge, and now I was satisfied with the result.

My eyes narrowed when I saw that the injury wasn't as severe as I had been expecting. The guy's magic must've acted as a kind of built-in shield, lessening the force of the blow and protecting Gildarts from serious injury, much like Kenpachi's had when I first fought him all those years ago.

"Not bad," Gildarts called, glancing up at me. "I was wondering when you were going to unsheathe your second blade. As a matter of fact, I kind of forgot about it."

I said nothing, my mind narrowing to focus on the battle and disregarding any dialogue. Gildarts seemed to understand this, and he ran a hand through his slicked-down hair. "Ah, well, if you don't want to talk I won't make ya."

Then the ground around us started shaking as Gildarts finally let loose with more of his power, surrounding himself in a screaming white aura that shattered the ground around him and caused the smaller rocks in the area to rise up and break into infinitesimal pieces.

The pressure was like a physical weight on my back, and my eyes widened when I realized that it outstripped mine in its current state.

If I wanted to match Gildarts, I would actually have to go into bankai.

**_"Color me impressed. The old dude's actually kinda strong."_**

_"Be careful, Ichigo. He may not be as strong as Kenpachi was, but his attacks are far more potent and destructive."_

_I hear you, Old Man. No need to worry; I've got this under control._

I drew back, scowling under the pressure Gildarts' magical power was putting me under, and pointed Zangetsu in his direction while crossing the trench blade over the cleaver. My Reiatsu built up in an impressive display, until a pillar of blue shot towards the sky in a pulsing beam and dust swirled through the air, kicked up by the winds my power generated. The light was blinding, but the shift to bankai was easy and as the traces of my power slowly dissipated I slashed Tensa Zangetsu through the air, dispelling any remaining clouds.

"Bankai," I uttered softly. "Tensa Zangetsu."

Immediately, Gildarts launched a crash spell at me, which I countered and cancelled out with a Getsuga Tenshō, which had switched to a black color outlined in a burning red. The change in color's meaning was obvious as the crash spell was completely obliterated, a sharp contrast to the way they had been previously breaking through my energy attacks.

Gildarts' eyes narrowed as he took this in, and he began upping the power of his attacks even further, something I hadn't thought he'd been capable of.

Now, every time we clashed the trees in the distance bent backward with the forces unleashed, some of them snapping cleanly in half and craters exploding under our feet, the grass long since crushed by the power of our battling energies.

I brought Tensa Zangetsu to bear against Gildarts, only to have him block it with his arm and launch a counter crash spell, which I had to twist to avoid. Disengaging my blade, I aimed a swift punch at Gildarts' solar plexus, which he also blocked. As both my hands were diverted away from my center, Gildarts struck, his hand glowing white as he attempted to catch me with a serious blow to the chest.

In response, I dropped, kicking out with my feet at the same time and hitting Gildarts in the stomach even as I landed heavily on my back. He was sent back several meters with a grunt, one hand clutching his abdomen while I had the breath knocked from my lungs.

Overhead, thunder rumbled, and droplets of rain began to splatter down, hitting the destroyed ground with a constant, faint drumming noise. At some point during the fight, the sun had disappeared, but I was too distracted to pay attention to that.

Gildarts was back on his feet, and as I sent a Getsuga Tenshō his way, he rendered it null with a burst of disassembly magic, only to quickly follow up with a crash spell in the wake of his first move.

Since he hadn't used that tactic in the rest of the fight, I was caught unprepared, and grunted as I attempted to ward off the crash spell with Zangetsu's blade. The white energy raged against my own, some of it slipping past my guard and tearing against my clothes, only to be deflected by the armor part of my bankai. This time, Gildarts would have to go at me full power to get any effect; deflected and weakened pieces of a crash spell weren't going to do the trick.

With a cry, I forced the attack to the side and saw it explode against the ground a good ways back, creating a massive hole.

_He's not holding back at all anymore. I'd better do the same._

I held out my left hand, two fingers pointed in Gildarts' direction. A red light began charging at the tip, powered by spirals of energy that were drawn into it. It grew rapidly, until I released it with a single word.

"Cero."

The red beam of destruction exploded outwards like a massive laser, decimating everything in its path. Gildarts rapidly countered with his usual disassembly magic, but he was surprised when the Cero wasn't completely nullified, and the Fairy Tail mage was caught in a large explosion that completely destroyed half the clearing and blew away anything that wasn't firmly attached to the ground. My eyes narrowed in response to the flying debris, but I didn't let my guard down.

The rain was pouring harder, drenching my hair and forming small puddles on the ground. I blinked some of it out of my eyes, trying to clear my vision.

As the dust cleared, I saw Gildarts down on one knee, his cloak in tatters and a sizable amount of blood pouring from his chest, intermingling with the water coursing down his body.

_The Cero must've blown open the wound in his chest before his crash magic could protect him._

_"I believe that was the finishing blow, Ichigo."_

_Maybe. I don't know._

Whatever I was going to do next was interrupted when the ground began shaking, and this time it wasn't from magical or spiritual power.

"The hell?" I said, spinning around rapidly to look at Magnolia, where the shaking was originating from. At this distance, the town itself was hard to make out, but the clouds squatting above it were obvious, mostly because the entire area was lit up with brilliant flashes of lightning.

The feeling I was getting from the storm was strange, even by my standards, and judging from the way the clouds were all circling around a hole in the sky, it wasn't a good feeling at all. Nothing good ever came from holes in the sky.

"Gildarts!" I yelled over the pounding rain. "We've gotta get back to Magnolia! Something's happening!"

"I can't move," Gildarts managed from his position on the ground, his voice labored with pain.

In an instant, I was by his side, examining his injury critically. It was a bad one, that was for sure, and judging from how pale Gildarts' face was he was in no condition to be moved.

_"You must heal him before you can go anywhere, Ichigo."_

_Yeah. I owe him that much._

**_"And more. He put up one hell of a fight, King. Yer gonna have t' spar with 'im again!"_**

"Stay still," I ordered, shifting Gildarts so that he was on his back. He hissed through his teeth as the rain poured into his wound, but I knew the pain was negligible in comparison to the agony of the wound itself. Some of the man's ribs were visible through the blood soaking his skin, and I knew I had to act fast.

Luckily, with Unohana herself teaching me the basics of healing Kaidō, I was the best person for the job.

Holding my hands over Gildarts' wound, I channeled my Reiatsu to them and saw the familiar green glow appear. Slowly, Gildarts' magic responded, heading to his injury.

Since magic energy was different than spiritual energy, it was very strange to replenish it and then convince it—inasmuch as an inanimate energy could be convinced—to heal Gildarts faster than what his body was normally capable of. Nevertheless, after about a minute of mental cursing, I finally managed to do it.

Agonizingly slowly—by my standards—Gildarts' wound closed up, and the skin slowly knit back together. Thanks to my hollow side, I was able to imbue the Kaidō I knew about with Instant Regeneration, so my healing was much more potent than Unohana's, though it was also much more risky. Luckily, Gildarts' magic didn't seem to be rejecting the hollow energy, which was good. Otherwise, he could've died.

Gildarts groaned as his wound closed up. "I'm not even gonna ask you what that was," he muttered, slowly sitting up and putting a hand to his chest, feeling where the injury had been moments previously.

"No time," I answered. "Look at the sky."

Gildarts complied, and then his eyes widened. "What in the world's going on over there?"

"I don't know, but we have to get over there."

"Right."

I held out my hand and hauled Gildarts to his feet, and then we were both running towards Magnolia, somehow hoping to prevent whatever disaster we could sense was on the horizon. The rain made running difficult, and the torn-up state of the clearing even more so.

As we got closer, the sense of danger increased, until even Zangetsu was warning me to be careful.

When the hollow was nervous, I had good reason to be as well.

Suddenly, energy pulsed from the hole in the sky and the frequency of the lightning doubled. My eyes widened and instinctively I knew that whatever was about to happen, I was in range, and so was Gildarts.

Acting quickly on years of experience in surprise attacks during the war, I turned around and tackled a startled Gildarts to the ground, all the while muttering an incantation as fast as I could. Just as the energy pulse—which had taken the form of a massive, roaring tornado—reached me, I yelled out,

"Bakudō number seventy-three, Tozanshō!"

An inverted pyramid sprang up around me, covering Gildarts as well, and glowed a soft blue as the winds raged around it. Gildarts was still, probably in shock, but we both saw the way the trees and plants around us glowed white and then _vanished_, sucked away in the storm. I could feel the drain on my power; whatever the energy was, it was eating away at my own, and only my incredible reserves were keeping the barrier intact. The whole world was shaking, and the shrieking of the wind was deafening.

It was lucky that I hadn't gone with a berserker tactic against Gildarts; the toll of Instant Regeneration would've screwed me over.

As quickly as it had come, the wind vanished, taking the entire town of Magnolia—and its surrounding forests—with it.

Slowly, I let the Bakudō spell dissolve into nothing, breathing heavily. No matter how good I had gotten at it, shaping my massive reserves of Reiatsu into a concentrated spell always drained me more than it should.

I stood up slightly shakily, allowing Gildarts to do so as well, and looked around. What I saw was nothing like the landscape Gildarts and I had been making our way through minutes before.

The trees, the grass, and even the dirt were gone, replaced by a seemingly endless plain of whitewashed sand. Clouds of ethereal white dust drifted by on an unfelt breeze, and bubbles rose up from the ground in random bursts, defying gravity and giving the entire area an otherworldly feel.

Even more disturbing was the complete, utter, desolate silence. Even the rain had stopped.

"What happened here?" Gildarts asked, his voice strangely loud against the silent backdrop.

"I don't know," I replied, looking around. After I didn't see anyone, I began probing with my other senses, searching for traces of magical energy. Immediately, I locked on five separate signatures, a few of which were muffled, like the owners were buried under the sand. "The good news is that I can feel some people that are still alive; we should search for them, see if they know any more than we do about what happened here."

"Sounds good," Gildarts agreed. He was serious; like so many of the friends I'd had in the past, he knew when was an appropriate time for joking and when was not. Right now, faced with the disappearance of all of Magnolia and, more importantly, Fairy Tail, Gildarts was practically as serious as he could get.

"I guess the spar was a good idea," I said aloud, sensing that Gildarts was getting apprehensive at the desolate quiet.

"How do you mean?"

"If I hadn't been with you, so far away from Magnolia, I have no doubt that you would've met the same fate as everything and everyone else."

Gildarts took a deep breath, momentarily closing his eyes. "You're right." He opened them again and smiled at me, somewhat tiredly. "Thanks."

We walked on, keeping our senses on alert for anyone alive. The whole time, I couldn't shake the feeling that my arrival and subsequent joining of the Fairy Tail guild had coincided with something bigger than anything I'd ever experienced before the war with Aizen.

* * *

_A/N HA! I _finally_ got the Edolas arc moving! Let's see how Ichigo's presence changes __things! Especially since he also managed to save Gildarts, the most powerful wizard in Fairy Tail. Therefore, GOODBYE CANON!_

**_Reviews:_**

**_ultima-owner: _**_as much as I toyed with the idea, Ichigo's too fast and intelligent to get chibified. Though it would be pretty hilarious if he did . . . *cracks knuckles*_

**_jcampbellohton:_**_ as usual, your detailed and helpfully critical review is much appreciated! Since I already answered your questions, I don't see the need to explore the infinite annoyances of redundancy :)_

**_Chaos-Guard: _**_I believe your desire for action has probably been satisfied._

**_shinyshadowklefki: _**_I took your advice, and damn am I happy that I did! Originally they were just gonna talk, but that's no fun at all. So feel proud, shinyshadowklefki! You helped this story!_

_And now, because ultima-owner just gave me an idea, I present: Chibified Ichigo!_

I quickly dove to the left, avoiding a particularly powerful crash spell, which quickly detonated against the ground behind me. Gildarts' attacks were getting more and more powerful, and I found that going against him in sealed Shikai state was becoming ridiculous.

Another spell whistled by my head and I cursed, realizing that Gildarts was giving me no time to pull myself together in order to go to bankai; I was about to undo the seal as I launched a Getsuga Tenshō, but my eyes went wide when I saw it get disassembled into tiny pieces. That wasn't what concerned me; apparently, Gildarts had overestimated the power of the attack, and the net of disassembly magic was getting close.

_**"Move it, King!"**_

For the first time in a long time, I didn't react in time. I began the motions to Shunpo out of the way, but my timing was a split-second to slow. The net dug into my skin, and with the strangest feeling I felt myself split apart.

For the briefest moment, my vision went black, and when it cleared . . . I wasn't sure what to do. I was myself, about fifteen centimeters off the ground, but at the same time I was _all_ of me, thousands of mini-me clones all scattered in piles around the clearing. Turning, I looked at Gildarts, whose size was positively monstrous at this point.

_**"What. The hell. Is this."**_

My thoughts echoed Zangestu's exactly. As soon as that happened, I thought about how I could turn this situation to my advantage. Immediately, all of the copies of me-no, just me-wait-no-dammit this was confusing-started growling similar sentiments, and thousands of cleaver blades suddenly found themselves pointed at Gildarts. Blue energy swirled around them, and, as one, thousands of me yelled, "Getsuga Tenshō!"

"Take that!"

"And this!"

"Ha!"

"You're done!"

"No way to escape!"

As the blue energy cleared, I was greeted with the sight of a wide-eyed and comically burned Gildarts, his mouth hanging open as he regarded the tiny doll-like copies of me that dotted the clearing. Then, with a groan, he fell forward and landed face-first in the dirt.

Hundreds of me clambered on top of him, yelling in victory. Somewhere, one of me had found a flag and hoisted it over Gildarts' unconscious body.

"Down goes Gildarts!"

Fairy Tail's strongest wizard could only groan in defeat.

_So there you are. This was really fun to write, and I hope those of you that read it enjoyed it!_

_Until next time, _

_-RoR_

_Please review._

**_10-3-14: Okay. Since Mr. Zero the impatient reviewer is being quite irritating, I'll give you guys an update on my current situation. As of this moment, I have an impromptu in AP Euro today that I've been studying for (as much as you can study for an impromptu) for the past three days, an english assignment that's taken me a week to finish, another english assignment (reading a book) with long chapters and a vocab list and study guide questions, not to mention my daily math and spanish work. Let's also not forget my english essay and AP Euro project, which have been taking up considerable amounts of my time on top of sports._**

**_So, Zero, there is still no chapter 6. Have I begun writing it? Yes. Have I had the time to really plot out where I'm going with this story? No._**

**_*deep breath*_**

**_Okay, I'm done ranting. I won't be updating _Rift_ for a while (it's on hold, people, that hasn't changed), though a new chapter for_ Rewind_ is in the works since I've plotted the first arc of that story_._ Really, I apologize if you're _that_ anxious for another chapter, but I have a life and I fully intend to live it._**

**___(10-13-14: _****NEWS: **I've opened a poll in my profile as to whether I'll be updating Rewind _or _Rift_ in the future. You guys should check it out and vote. It'll be open for a long, long time, but I figured the sooner the better to get more people's input. Also, the next chapter of this story will be coming out sometime after 10-30-14, which is when the next chapter of_ Rewind_ will be posted._)


	6. Chapter 6

_I am so tired. AP Euro is going to be the death of me. Why are there so damn many people named Mary, Charles, and Louis? It's absurd!_

_Anyway, it's late, I'm exhausted, and I really didn't proofread this as well as I should have. Therefore, I apologize for any glaring grammatical/spelling errors that I missed._

* * *

Chapter 6

One magic signature that I was detecting was clearly troubled, and after running for a minute Gildarts and I could hear shouting. My eyes narrowed.

"That sounds like Wendy," I said, some of the tension I had been feeling draining slightly. At least Wendy, someone I had grown to like in a detached sort of way, was alive. Really, she was too much like Yuzu for me to spend too much time around her, but most of the time I was able to keep those painful memories at bay.

Most of the time.

"Wendy?"

I glanced back at Gildarts, having to remind myself that he was even more out of the loop of Fairy Tail than I was.

"She's the small, blue-haired sky dragon slayer. Y'know, the little girl?"

Gildarts' face filled with recognition, though more than a little of it looked fake. "Oh, right. Her."

"Is anyone out there?" Wendy was yelling, her voice breaking. Apparently, she couldn't see us through the drifting clouds of dust.

"Wendy!" I called, making sure that I spoke loudly enough for my voice to carry to her. A second later, Gildarts and I stumbled upon the small dragon slayer, who was on her knees with Carla a meter or two away. The cat was looking abnormally serious even given the current situation, and simply by looking at her I could tell that she knew something about what had happened. It was a skill I had picked up during the war.

When Carla saw Gildarts and me, her eyes widened in shock.

"How on earth are you two still alive?" She asked, her feline features doing a remarkable job of conveying her surprise. Gildarts opened his mouth to answer, but I shot him a warning look. Something was off about the cat, and I figured that the less she knew, the better.

"I had a few tricks up my sleeve," I answered vaguely. "And I was dropping by Gildarts' home when it happened."

"What _did_ happen, anyway?" Gildarts asked, crossing his arms over his chest. The motion looked much more natural with his improved prosthetics. "Wendy, do you know what went on here?"

She shook her head mutely, her eyes wide and watering. It was clear that she was on the verge of tears, and I quickly knelt in front of her, putting my hand on her shoulder.

"Hey," I said softly. "There's no need for you to worry. We'll fix this, okay?"

She nodded, clasping her hands in front of her chest and swallowing back whatever she had been about to say. Then I took a deep breath, stood, and turned to my right.

On cue, Natsu burst out of the sand, spluttering and confused. His eyes immediately fixed on mine. "Whoa, Ichigo." He took in the rest of the group. "Wendy, Carla, Gildarts . . . what's going on? Why's everyone here?"

He looked around, slowly climbing to his feet. "And where's the guild? I could've sworn I was just in there . . ."

"They all vanished," Wendy replied, sniffing, her voice strained. "They all glowed white and then _disappeared_ into the hole in the sky!"

"Hole in the . . ." Natsu repeated, looking up. When he did, he jumped, his eyes going wide. "When did that get there?"

"Recently," I drawled sarcastically, in no mood for Natsu's usual antics. "Look, clearly something's going on here that's a lot more serious than any of us are expecting. We need to find everyone else and think of a plan."

My eyes closed briefly, and I pinpointed the three other human magic signatures nearby. When I opened them, I saw Carla glaring at me. I glared right back, scowling as fiercely as I could.

"You got a problem?" I growled, and was gratified when Carla actually took a step back. She pulled herself together quickly, however.

"Of course not. I simply feel that I should share the information I know about what has occurred here before you fools do something reckless. We don't have a lot of time to act."

My eyes narrowed—of _course_ the know-it-all cat knew what was up, as I had thought—and then I sighed, letting my expression soften again. "Fine, whatever. Just wait until I get everyone else so you don't have to repeat everything twice."

I vanished in a burst of Shunpo before Carla could protest, though sensing that time was of the essence I went quickly and found Gajeel buried in the sand, only one of his arms and his legs sticking out. With a roll of my eyes, I grabbed onto his ankle and yanked him out, depositing him none-too-gently on the ground.

"The hell was that for?" He spat, wiping sand off of himself while giving me an annoyed look. With his piercings and strangely colored eyes, he would probably look intimidating to a normal person. Compared to a hollow, however, Gajeel was nothing, and his appearance was nothing strange to me. There were (had been) far more _unique_ Shinigami in Soul Society.

"You were stuck," I replied simply. "Now go find the others; they're over that way. You can ask questions later."

I pointed, and Gajeel followed my finger. Only then did he seem to realize the situation.

"Hey, wait a minute. Where's the guild? Hell, where's Magnolia?"

"Questions. Later," I repeated, my tone decidedly more dangerous than it had been moments before. Gajeel snarled at me, crossing his arms.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, Ichigo, but I ain't takin orders from you. I listen to myself, and that's it."

Zangetsu had taken control before I even considered letting him.

**"Listen here, jackass," **he snarled, grabbing Gajeel by the throat and slamming him down on the sand. The dragon slayer choked, his hands scrabbling at my own. To his horror, and Zangetsu's satisfaction, the dragon slayer was not strong enough to break Zangetsu's grip. **"We've got a bit of a situation here. I'd suggest listening, or Fairy Tail's gonna have one less dragon slayer, got it?"**

The change in my eye color, coupled with the change in my voice and the way Zangetsu always leaked paralyzing amounts of killing intent held Gajeel down for another ten seconds after I stood up and dusted myself off.

_A little warning next time, Zangetsu._

**_"He was pissin' me off, King. Can't he tell that now isn't the time for shit like that?"_**

_Apparently not._

I shot Gajeel a look, and after reaching up to touch his throat and blatantly staring at me, the dragon slayer backed off, cowed.

"You ain't normal," I heard him mutter right before he got swallowed up by a dust cloud.

_That could've gone better._

_"It could have gone worse as well."_

_How?_

_"He could have attacked you in retaliation and drawn the others to our position, where they would have seen Zangetsu."_

_Natsu and Lucy already know about him._

**_"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!"_**

_Sorry._

That seemed to mollify Zangetsu, and he went quiet.

The next person I encountered was Lucy, who was buried face-first in the sand so that only her legs stuck out. I stood there for a few moments, debating the best way to drag her out without humiliating her. Despite being buried, Lucy still reached a high enough volume for me to hear her yelling for help.

After sighing, I grabbed her ankles and pulled, dropping her onto the sand once she was completely freed. The entire time, I was careful to keep my eyes averted, in order to let Lucy keep some of her dignity.

"Ow . . . " Lucy said, dusting herself off. She looked up, and her eyes widened when she saw where she was. "Hey, this isn't Magnolia!" Her gaze then turned to me. "Ichigo, what did you do?"

I couldn't help but be irked by her automatic assumption that this was _my_ fault.

"Hey, I didn't do anything. The portal in the sky opened without my interference."

Lucy's eyes widened almost comically. "P—portal?" When she looked up, her eyes all but popped out of her head. "What the heck?! When did that get there?!"

"Fairly recently," I said, crossing my arms and failing to keep the sarcasm from my tone. "Before you freak out, the other survivors—" I mentally berated myself for using the word "survivors", since it made it sound like everyone else was dead, but I couldn't eliminate that possibility, "are over there." I pointed, and Lucy followed my finger.

"Survivors?" She whispered. "What happened to the guild?" She turned to me, and I realized that she was trembling. "Ichigo, what happened? Where is everyone? Where is Magnolia?"

"Calm down," I ordered, some of my usual harshness slipping into my tone. Lucy flinched, probably not expecting it. "Lucy, now isn't the time for you to panic. I need you to go over there and meet with everyone else while I try and find Mystogan."

"Mystogan? W—what does he have to do with anything?"

My eyes turned to flint. "I don't know. Now go."

Swallowing back whatever she had been planning on saying, Lucy left, walking carefully over the shifting sand and avoiding the strange streams of bubbles. I watched her go for a moment, and then turned around. The magical signature that had been lurking there for the past few minutes abruptly became more agitated, and I had recognized it the second I'd sensed it.

"Mystogan, you have some serious explaining to do."

The mysterious man emerged from the clouds of dust and stopped a little ways away from me, and my eyes narrowed as I took in his blue hair and the strange tattoo over his eye.

Seriously, my hair color was starting to look tame, something I couldn't claim back in Soul Society. Well, except for Renji. That idiot's hair was nothing short of ridiculous.

The memory of Renji made me clench one hand into a fist, but I forcibly relaxed it before Mystogan could notice.

Mystogan regarded me silently for a few moments, his expression entirely unreadable. His body language, on the other hand, spoke volumes about how tense he was. After a few more flickers of spectral lightning from above, he spoke.

"What is your name?"

**_"The guy doesn't even know yer name? Color me _un_surprised."_**

_Be quiet. I've never talked to him before and I don't think I've even seen him really hanging around the guildhall between missions. Hell, the only reason I know him at all is because he was at the guild a few weeks ago, and I recognize his magical energy._

"The name's Ichigo Kurosaki," I said. "I joined the Fairy Tail guild recently."

Mystogan's expression tightened for a fraction of a second, and I recognized the emotion as guilt.

_Now why would he feel guilty?_

**_"Why don't ya ask him?"_**

"Mystogan," I said, "I sensed you come into Magnolia only a little while before everything went to shit. I've got pretty reliable instincts, and right now they're telling me that you and _that_—" I pointed at the sky, "are related."

There was that expression again. My theory was right.

_"Perhaps he was planning on explaining his involvement at a later date."_

_Well, he's about to learn that things don't always go according to plan._

"Please," Mystogan said, evidently trying to placate me, "I can explain."

"Good," I replied, grinning without any real mirth. In an instant, I had moved forward, grabbed him by the collar, and used Sonido to place Mystogan in front of the group before he had any time to react. "Then explain it," I finished.

Mystogan was smart enough to keep himself calm and collected despite the green tinge to his face. As I watched, somewhat impressed, Mystogan pushed down his nausea to the point where it wasn't visible in his body language or features.

Only Gildarts hadn't reacted to my sudden appearance; apparently, he'd already grown accustomed to my speed. Gajeel's eyes narrowed, Natsu's eyes widened, Lucy jumped, Wendy followed Lucy's example, Carla twitched, and Happy . . . well, I wasn't sure what Happy was doing. He was just hovering over Natsu's head, his white wings spread as wide as they could go.

_How can a cat use magic, anyway?_

_"This is a different world, Ichigo. It has different rules."_

_Yeah, but that cat can _speak_ and it can fly. Plus, I've seen perfectly normal cats walking around and no other talking or flying cat besides Happy and Carla."_

**_"Yer lookin way too inta this, King."_**

_Maybe._

Some instinct was telling me that I was on the right track with my thoughts, no matter how whimsical they seemed at first.

"Hey, Ichigo!" Natsu said. "You know what's goin on? What happened to Magnolia?"

"Ask Mystogan," I said, jerking my head in the man's direction. "He knows more than I do."

The man of the hour was an odd mix of uncomfortable and grave; his eyes were pained but hard, and his mouth was set in a grim line that appeared to be a grimace at the same time. The lightning in the sky reflected off his hair, making it look much brighter and throwing his face into sharp contrast. He had removed his masks, the only reason that his face was visible. As he regarded his guild mates, I could see the lines of apprehension that ran across his expression, and I realized that there was a lot more to this guy's history than I had initially thought.

"Hold on," Natsu said, realization dawning on his face. "You're not Mystogan! You're Jellal!"

Mystogan flinched. "No, I am not Jellal. Jellal is a different person than I am." He glanced at Wendy, and then back at Natsu, who looked torn between confused and angry. I gave him a not-so-subtle look to encourage him to keep talking. "You see, I come from Edolas."

"Edolas?" Lucy asked, her eyebrows drawing together. "What's that?"

"Edolas is a world that exists separately from our own," Carla explained. Mystogan took her interruption in stride, and I felt my suspicions grow. Mystogan had known something about Carla this whole time.

"Carla?" Wendy said, her voice still shaky. "Do you know something about this?"

"Of course, child," Carla said, her voice ringing with impatience. "It is where the tomcat and I originate from."

"Whoa, Happy, you came from a different _world_?" Natsu breathed, looking at his best friend with excitement and completely dismissing Mystogan from his mind. Lucy was looking at me, her mouth open in question, but I minutely shook my head, hoping that Gildarts wasn't paying attention. From what I could tell, the guy wasn't the smartest person around, but when it came down to it he could be ingenious.

"I—I dunno," Happy said, playing with the green straps he had tied around his neck.

"Of course you do, tomcat," Carla snapped, her irritation showing for all to see. "We were given a mission to complete in this world. How could you have forgotten it?"

"I never got a mission," said Happy while he looked down at the ground, seemingly shrinking in on himself. When he looked up, his eyes were watery. "What mission, Carla?"

Carla's expression tightened much like Mystogan's had earlier and I felt Shiro growl in my head. Whatever this "mission" was, it wasn't good.

_Is this why she's been so moody the past few days?_

**_"Who knows, King. She could just be a moody person."_**

_She's a cat._

**_"Shut up."_**

"Why don't you two just explain what Edolas is and why it's important," I said, trying to focus the group. Something told me that time was limited, and I didn't feel like watching Carla berate Happy for something that was clearly out of his control.

"I agree with Ichigo," Gildarts said, and I was silently pleased that he'd spoken up. As powerful as I had proven myself to be, Gildarts was by far the most senior of those present and his words carried far more weight than mine. The only person who wouldn't care was Gajeel, but I'd already gotten my message across to him and all it took was one glance to verify that the iron dragon slayer was paying attention. He noticed my look and scowled, his eyes sliding away from mine, unable to hold my gaze.

"As Carla said before, Edolas is a separate world from this one," Mystogan said. The lightning and eerie silence that came with the disappearance of Magnolia only made his words seem all the more ominous. "A separate dimension, really, which is linked to this world by portals called anima."

"I'm gonna guess that that's an anima," Gildarts said, jerking a thump up towards the massive hole in the sky. Mystogan nodded, closing his eyes briefly.

"Yes, that is an anima. I've dedicated my entire life to closing them before they can do any harm, but . . . I couldn't stop this one. It was too powerful."

"Were the anima going after specific targets?" I asked, frowning slightly. Specific targets made sense, since Fairy Tail was supposed to be the strongest magical guild in Fiore. Therefore, it was a logical location to attack. And if there were attacks . . . "And, if so, who's controlling them?"

"The anima targets areas with high concentrations of magical energy," Mystogan said. "The Fairy Tail guild, being the strongest in Fiore, was the most target."

_So I was right._

**_"Don't let it go ta yer head."_**

I ignored Zangetsu with the skill of long practice.

"They targeted us just 'cause we're strong?" Natsu asked. He ground his teeth for a moment, clearly frustrated. "I'm gonna make 'em regret messin with our guild!"

"Hold on, Natsu," Gildarts said, his tone mild. "We might want to learn everything we can before we go charging to Edolas."

Natsu grumbled for a moment before yielding to Gildarts' advice.

"You never said who controls them," I said.

"The king does," Mystogan said after a moment's hesitation.

"The king?" Lucy repeated. "There's a king in Edolas?"

"Yes. His name is King Faust, and he lives in a castle in the Royal City."

My eyes narrowed. There was something in Mystogan's tone, something in his body language when he said that name. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, though, which was irritating. Not even my Zanpakutō spirits could figure it out, though some of Zangetsu's suggestions were mildly disturbing.

"Is there a military in Edolas?" I asked. If this king controlled the anima, there was no doubt that he would be upset if we were to take back our friends. Therefore, I needed to know if we would run into any complications.

I had already come to the conclusion that I was going to Edolas, and there was nothing that would change my mind. The similarity to the situation with Rukia wasn't lost on me; once more, I was going to another world to rescue people I hadn't known for very long, but had formed close bonds with nonetheless. Well, as close of bonds as I was capable of making, anyway.

Damn Aizen. That smug bastard had ruined so many people's lives and permanently screwed up the afterlife. If I'd just been-

_**"Oi. No goin there, ya hear?"**_

_"Ichigo, we have talked about this. You must stay focused for the sake of your friends."_

I wanted to point out that the people of Fairy Tail were more acquaintances than friends, but to my surprise I found that I couldn't. After a moment where I allowed myself to feel some consternation, I let it go and refocused on the proceedings around me.

Mystogan nodded slowly. "There are four Magic War Divisions in the Royal Army, each headed by a powerful Royal Captain."

"Great!" Natsu said, slamming his fist into his palm and grinning savagely. "More guys to beat up!"

"No," I said, crossing my arms. "These opponents are probably going to be strong if they're captains. Mystogan, what are their names?"

He took a deep breath. "Pantherlily is the captain of the first, Erza Nightwalker is captain of the second, Sugarboy is captain of the third, and Hughes is captain of the fourth division."

"Hold on," Lucy said. "Erza?"

"That's what you meant earlier," I said, connecting the dots. "When you said Jellal was a different person than you, and that you came from Edolas. That doesn't explain your uncanny resemblance, nor the coincidence of Erza's name matching one of the captains'." I paused for a beat to let my brain catch up with my mouth. I normally spoke slowly and deliberately, but time was of the essence. "I'm going to guess that each of us has a mirror counterpart in Edolas."

The guess was a long shot by far, but I felt confident that I was right.

"You are right," Mystogan confirmed, his expression unchanging but pain flashing in his eyes all the same. "Not just members of the Fairy Tail guild, but the entire world as well."

"Whoa, so there's a me in Edolas too?" Natsu asked, excited. "That's so cool! We're gonna be best pals, dontcha think, Happy?"

The tomcat nodded, still looking oddly dejected. Apparently Carla's attitude had really begun to affect him. Natsu's excitement instantly evaporated, and he looked at his companion with worry.

**_"Huh. So maybe they're friends after all."_**

_You haven't figured that out yet?_

**_"I like to withhold judgment, unlike you."_**

_I'm going to pretend you didn't say that so we don't argue again._

**_"Fine by me."_**

"When we go to Edolas," I mused, "we're going to be fighting against this Royal Army, which Erza is apparently in. Is there anything else we should know about the royals?"

Mystogan thought for a moment before replying, his expression still mostly neutral. "King Faust is obsessed with saving the magic in Edolas. He has taken it away from the people and amassed it for himself and the captains in the Royal Army."

"I'm not close friends with Erza," Lucy put in, somewhat timid but speaking nonetheless, "but that doesn't sound like something Erza would support."

"You're right," I mused, looking at Mystogan. "And why would the king want to 'save' magic? Is it a limited resource there?"

The very idea of limited magic, compared to the limitless amounts in Earthland, was more than a bit odd.

"Yes, magic is limited in Edolas," Mystogan said, seemingly unintentionally ignoring Lucy's words. "People don't have internal sources of magic; instead, they use magical items imbedded with Lacrima."

"So what is it about the people?" I asked, bringing up the point that Lucy had been speaking about earlier that Mystogan had blatantly ignored. "They're not just duplicated in Edolas; that doesn't explain the personality differences, and I doubt the magic has anything to do with it."

"You're right, it's not the magic. Their personalities are different as well." Mystogan's tone was flat.

"Which would explain why the Erza I know could be associated with the Erza you've described," Gildarts said, thinking aloud.

"Does this mean there's a Fairy Tail guild in Edolas?" Wendy asked, hope shining in her eyes. "Maybe they can help us!"

"I believe there is a dark guild that goes by the name Fairy Tail," Mystogan said. "They are the only surviving magical guild because King Faust outlawed them years ago to conserve magic."

"Which brings us back to something important," I said. "You said that magic in Edolas is limited, which probably means they're using the anima linking our world to theirs to replenish their magic from the unlimited supply here. That's why they targeted Fairy Tail; so they could get as much magic as possible."

"Right," Mystogan acknowledged.

"I believe you are wondering if we would be capable of using our magic in Edolas, Ichigo," Carla said, speaking up from her long period of silence. I looked at her and blinked.

"Sure."

"The answer to that question is simple: no."

"Why not?" Gildarts asked, genuinely curious.

"As you all know, magic is replenished when the body absorbs Eternano in the air," Mystogan explained. "In Edolas, however, there is very little Eternano and it is not meant to be stored in a living body, meaning that your magic is incapable of leaving your body and affecting the world."

"But you have a solution," I surmised. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be telling us this."

Mystogan sighed. "Yes." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small vial with red spherical pills in it. "Eat one of these, and you will be able to use your magic in Edolas."

"How does it work?" I asked.

"It's a long explanation that has to do with the formation of an anima within—"

"That's too long," Natsu complained. "Can we go fight the Royal Army now? Our friends need our help!"

"Wait a little longer, Natsu," I cautioned as Mystogan distributed the pills to everyone save himself, Carla, and Happy.

"Hey, why don't we get any?" Happy asked.

"Exceeds have an internal source of magic that is designed to fit in with Edolas' decreased Eternano atmosphere," Mystogan explained. "Your race, the Exceed, are the only beings in Edolas that have their own magic source."

"Wow, Happy, that's awesome!" Natsu said, grinning at his best friend. Happy smiled a little as well, shaking off some of his previous melancholy as the idea of a rescue slowly became more and more plausible.

"So what kind of races exist in Edolas?" I asked. "You've mentioned humans and the exceed. Is that it?"

"Those are the two main races, yes," Mystogan confirmed. "The exceed see themselves as gods due to their magical abilities, and the humans believe that they judge who lives and who dies."

Everyone in the group turned to look at Happy, who shrunk under the sudden attention. Carla, on the other hand, only began to look more serious. She even refused to make eye contact with Wendy.

"Is that true?" I asked, my voice decidedly dangerous without being overtly so. Gajeel, however, picked up on it. Despite not having spoken the entire time, the dragon slayer looked strangely thoughtful, and I knew I had seen him mouthing the word "exceed" to himself more than once.

"From what I can tell, no," Mystogan said. "But no one seems to be willing to test it."

"Makes sense," Gildarts said thoughtfully.

"So, Edolas has mirrors of us that are different in personality . . . so is there a Magnolia there too?" Lucy asked.

"Not that I know of," Mystogan said, shaking his head. "The land in Edolas is different than the land here."

"How so?" I pressed. If the geography was different, that would make fighting different as well.

"The land in Edolas is largely floating above the main ground," Mystogan said, "borne aloft by magic energy. That's why Happy and Carla and the exceed are so well suited to the environment there; their wings give them an enormous advantage over the humans."

"Is the Royal City on one of these floating islands?" I asked. Mystogan nodded.

"As is the home of the exceed, Extalia. The two are close to one another."

"That makes it easy," Natsu said. Happy glanced up at him.

"Huh?"

"Well, Happy, you and Carla can visit your people while we kick the king's butt!"

"That's not a bad idea," I mused. "Plus, it would likely keep Happy and Carla out of danger. However, we have no idea how the exceed would react to Happy and Carla, since they have lived in this world and not Edolas."

"I can't say how the exceed will react," Mystogan admitted.

"Then it would be best to give Happy and Carla an escort," I said.

"We can't do that," Mystogan said sharply. "Exceed look down on humans as insects; they believe us to be stupid and weak. Going up there will only hurt Happy and Carla's chances of acceptance."

My lips thinned. "Then I can't say that I like the idea of sending anyone to this Extalia without escort. It's too much of a risk."

"Hey, don't underestimate Happy," Natsu put in.

"Or Carla!" Wendy said, though she seemed to be following Natsu's example more than anything else. Carla herself looked pained.

"It's settled, then," Carla said, taking charge in a way that made me grind my teeth instinctively. I could feel Zangetsu doing the same in my head, though the Old Man was doing his best to keep us both calm. "The tomcat and I, once we reach the royal city, will split off from the main group and go to Extalia. Wendy, I trust that you will be responsible enough to keep yourself out of danger?"

"Of course," Wendy said, nodding her head.

"There's no reason to worry!" Natsu declared, grinning. "We've got Gildarts! There's no way we can lose!"

"Don't go overselling my abilities, kid," Gildarts said, smiling just slightly.

I thought for a moment. Clearly, Happy and Carla would go to Extalia whether I wanted them to or not. Hopefully, if things went sour, they would be able to get away or at least hold out until backup could arrive. After a brief moment of deliberation, I sighed, giving in. Then my thoughts switched tracks entirely.

_We're going to need allies from Edolas to do this. They'll be more familiar with the land and can help us in sheer manpower if it comes down to a fight._

_"That is the most logical conclusion. Who are you thinking?"_

**_"Obviously the Fairy Tail guild."_**

_Mystogan did say that they're a dark guild._

**_"Only 'cause the king sounds like an asshole."_**

_"The hollow has a point. Fairy Tail does not seem to be on the wrong side of our laws."_

_That makes sense. Thanks._

I pulled myself back to the real world—the mental conversation had taken only a second—and cleared my throat, instantly getting everyone's attention.

"We should go to the Fairy Tail guild first," I said, "see if they can provide us with support. If it comes down to a fight, we could use the extra help against the entire Royal Army."

I didn't miss the way Lucy paled; evidently, she hadn't thought about any conflict on that scale.

"How would we find them?" Gildarts asked, crossing his arms. "Edolas sounds like a big place, and if Fairy Tail is indeed a dark guild then it isn't going to be a walk in the park to find."

"We'll find a way," I said, deciding not to just flat out say, "I could probably sense them" to save time, because everyone would probably want an explanation for that before we left.

"Um, guys?" Lucy asked. "How are we going to _get_ to Edolas?"

We all looked at her, and then slowly looked at the hole in the sky. I glanced back at Lucy quickly enough to see all the color drain from her face.

"You've gotta be kidding me," she whispered, horror seeping into her tone. "There's no way that's safe!"

"The anima is the only way to get from Earthland to Edolas," Mystogan said, drowning out Lucy's protests.

"That doesn't explain how we are all going to get to that portal," Gildarts said.

"It's not like we can fly," Gajeel muttered, speaking up for the first time in a while. His gaze darted over to and then away from me as he spoke, so it was clear that my presence was the thing keeping him subdued.

"It's pretty high," Wendy commented, her voice sounding small.

My eyes narrowed, and I glanced around the circle. After a moment, I shrugged.

"I can take two people with me," I said. "Natsu, Wendy, I'm sure Happy and Carla are capable of carrying you. I'll get Gildarts and Gajeel."

The iron dragon slayer's expression darkened fractionally, but he kept his mouth shut.

"W-what about me?" Lucy gulped.

"I can take you," Mystogan said, subconsciously glancing at the staves on his back. The one he held in his hand seemed to glow for a moment, but the light was gone a moment later. The blood drained from Lucy's face—she clearly wasn't comfortable with Mystogan or the idea of relying on him to keep from hitting the ground hard enough to splatter—but she didn't say anything aloud, which Mystogan seemed to appreciate.

"Whoa, Ichigo, you can fly?" Natsu asked, his eyes wide.

"Yeah," I replied. "Kind of. It's more like running."

Natsu just looked confused, and I elaborated further. "I can solidify the air under my feet using magic, and then push off that platform at high speeds."

"Oh."

The fire dragon slayer looked entirely too disappointed with that explanation, and I reflected that his expectations of my abilities were too high and too low at the same time. Gildarts merely looked amused.

"Ichigo, you still haven't eaten your pill," Mystogan said. "In order to use magic in Edolas, you need to eat it."

I glanced down at the red sphere I held in my hand. There was some kind of magical energy in it, and the mere idea of putting it in my body made me slightly nauseous. Something about the magic inside of it didn't agree with my Reiryoku, and I figured it was best to see whether I could use my abilities in Edolas or not before I risked some strange pill meant for someone with an entirely different kind of energy within them.

_"You will most likely be able to use your abilities in Edolas. There is Reishi in the air here, though the people are not aware of it. While Edolas may have less magic, people will be dying all the same."_

_Yeah. If worst comes to worst, I'll be able to survive the fall._

**_"Real comforting."_**

_Oh, shut up._

After a brief second of deliberation, I pretended to put the pill in my mouth and swallow while casually dropping my hand to my side, allowing the pill to slide into my pocket without anyone noticing.

"Everyone ready?" Mystogan asked. We nodded.

_Ready, Zangetsu?_

**_"Yeah."_**

Happy and Carla grabbed Natsu and Wendy, respectively, and began pulling them into the air.

"When I give the signal," Mystogan said as a magic circle appeared beneath him and lifted him and Lucy into the air, "everyone go as quickly as possible. Do not let another person out of your sight, and do not stop for any reason."

We nodded, and I glanced at Gildarts and Gajeel. "Ready?"

They nodded, and without a word Zangetsu appeared. Both wizards jumped, and I grinned.

"Relax, and don't ask questions," I advised. "Otherwise, you might get dropped during the trip."

Zangetsu walked up to Gajeel and grinned his usual unsettling grin.

**"Hey," **he said, and Gajeel stiffened with recognition. Zangetsu leaned in close and spoke in a soft voice. I didn't hear what he said, but Gajeel scowled. I could tell that he was trying to hide his fear, since Zangetsu was more than capable of pouring out killing intent and potent hollow Reiatsu on anyone. Something about hollow Reiatsu, whether the target could identify it or not, automatically put people on edge.

I'd made use of it during interrogations during the war many, many times.

_"It is best not to think about that, Ichigo."_

_I know, Old Man. Just got distracted, that's all._

Mystogan, Lucy, Natsu, Wendy, Happy, and Carla were all high in the sky, and I knew I had to get a move on. Glancing at Gildarts, I let a small grin pull on my lips.

"Things changed quickly," I said, referring to how we'd been fighting less than an hour beforehand.

"They tend to do that," Gildarts replied, oddly serious. His hand went instinctively to his abdomen and the brutal scar that was etched into his skin. My lips thinned in understanding, but I got ready to go anyway.

**"Let's go, King," **Zangetsu said, slinging Gajeel over one shoulder. The iron dragon slayer was oddly still, and I could instantly tell that he was knocked out. I didn't want to know when or how Zangetsu had accomplished that, and it probably wasn't the best course of action in the long run, but I was grateful all the same; a struggling Gajeel would be more of a hindrance than help, since the dragon slayer would no doubt protest being carried, especially by Zangetsu.

Twenty seconds later, I found myself hurtling through the air, pulling Gildarts along with me. The winds whipped at my hair but I ignored them, subconsciously using my Reiatsu to shield Gildarts and myself from the worst of the elements.

Sooner than I had originally expected, we were flying through the hole in the sky. It was a strange tunnel of clouds, full of eerily flickering lightning and a powerful sense of foreboding. The air was definitely thinning, and there was an odd pressure throughout my body reminiscent of the feeling I had gotten when going through the portal in Kisuke's lab.

Through the wind, I heard Mystogan's voice: "NOW!"

Zangetsu and I switched to a faster version of Flash Step, blurring with speed and rapidly gaining on the others. I had to put more effort in than normal due to Gildarts, but I was still fast enough in shikai to match Happy and Carla, who were like blue comets as they flew through the air.

Time seemed to bend and stretch, taking space with it as the horizon stretched out to infinity and vanished in the distance. Colors shot past me in a dizzying display but I ignored them, focusing on the light in the distance and a glowing magic circle in front of me that indicated where Lucy and Mystogan were. I was well aware of Zangetsu to my right, keeping pace with me easily.

In seconds, it was over, and a bright flash of white light blinded me. A sense of weightlessness hit me, throwing off my sense of balance, only to return with a nauseating effect.

Gravity soon took effect and I automatically halted my descent, stopping Gildarts as well.

_Is this Edolas?_

I blinked and looked around, taking in the environment in an instant. The brightly colored trees, floating islands of rock, and the river quite literally dancing through the air answered all of those questions for me: yes, this was most definitely Edolas.

_And if I'm standing on air . . ._

I looked down, and, sure enough, the ground was a ways below me, blanketed in purple trees and large, strangely colored mushrooms.

"Well," Gildarts commented from slightly below me. "I can't say that this is entirely what I expected."

"It _is_ a different world," I responded, my voice mild. Some distance away, I saw Mystogan lowering himself and Lucy to the ground while Happy and Carla merely plummeted.

**"I thought they had magic," **Zangetsu said, frowning as he looked at the cats' descents.

"Must not be used to the different magic concentration here," I said. I almost added, "like the World of the Living and Soul Society", but stopped myself when I remembered that Gildarts was nearby. No doubt it would take Happy and Carla a little while to adjust, but when they did, they would be fine.

A minute later, I rejoined the others, Zangetsu vanished, and Gajeel regained consciousness, in that order. The others had been too preoccupied with the new world to explore to really notice the white copy of me that vanished as quickly as it came. Not that it mattered, since Gildarts didn't seem to care and Wendy was busy exploring the nearby area.

Natsu looked excited, Lucy looked anxious, Carla looked like the weight of the world was on her feline shoulders, Happy looked like a mix between curious and worried, and Mystogan was entirely unreadable. Gildarts and Gajeel were the same way, although Gajeel was scowling and had his arms crossed, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. I'd noticed him rubbing the back of his neck after regaining consciousness and shooting me suspicious looks, but I had decided to ignore them.

"So this is Edolas," Gildarts said, looking around. "I'm impressed."

"I've never seen trees this color before!" Wendy said, looking at the purple trees that towered over us. "They're so bright, and the air here is so clean!"

"Who do you think we're gonna beat up first, eh, Happy?" Natsu said, one of his fists lighting on fire and grinning at his feline friend. "The Royal Army? The first captain? That third captain? The second? Erza?"

"Erza and the second captain—at least Erza Nightwalker—are the same person, you buffoon," Carla said, irritated with Natsu's obliviousness.

"There's no need to be so harsh, Carla," Wendy said. Carla merely huffed and turned away, her arms still crossed.

"Tomcat," Carla said suddenly, glancing at Happy through narrowed eyes.

"Huh?" Happy responded, clearly shocked that Carla was directly addressing him.

"By coming to Edolas, we have abandoned our mission in Earthland." Happy's eyes widened in surprise. "If the exceed find out, they will likely be unhappy."

"Then lie," I said. "Don't tell them you 'abandoned' this mission of yours—which you should tell the group, by the way. Secret agendas aren't getting anyone anywhere."

**_"Yer one ta talk."_**

_And so are you. Which one of us pretended to be the enemy for the first year of our relationship?_

**_"Shut up."_**

_That's what I'm suggesting._

**_"Asshole."_**

_Jackass._

"I cannot tell you my mission!" Carla snapped, dragging me out of my thoughts.

"Carla!" Wendy said, her tone pleading while she tried to make Carla's words less harsh. It was a doomed attempt. For such a dignified cat, Carla was far past the point of rudeness and straight into insulting, even patronizing at times.

I kept my expression blank to the point just before hostile. "Fine."

"Ooh, do we get to make disguises?" Natsu asked, already looking around for something he could use.

"That won't be necessary," Mystogan said. "For now, we should simply search for the Fairy Tail guild. It moves quite frequently, so finding it will be difficult."

"Shouldn't we just fly around?" Lucy asked, somewhat hesitant. "Wouldn't that save time?"

"It would also make us more likely to be spotted by any scouts from the Royal Army," Mystogan said. "They patrol all of Edolas, and report back to the Royal City. There aren't many of them, but being spotted would be disastrous for us."

"So we just find 'em and knock 'em out!" Natsu declared, grinning widely. I shook my head.

"Too risky. We'll walk for now, and if we need to fly, we will."

_Plus, walking will give my senses time to adjust. That should allow me to sense where the Fairy Tail guild is if it's anywhere near here._

Old Man Zangetsu sent a wave of approval my way, and that only further solidified my plans.

Trekking through Edolas was an interesting experience, more of a sightseeing trip than a search for backup. Wendy and Lucy stuck together, admiring the strange plants and landscape, while Natsu and Gajeel found something to argue about and glared at each other with such intensity I was somewhat surprised there weren't physical sparks flying between them. There was a spirit of competition between the two, one that I found eerily similar to the one I had shared with Renji.

The thought of the dutiful Shinigami lieutenant made my chest ached, and I focused on suppressing that feeling and locking it back in the box.

_"You will have to confront your losses eventually, Ichigo."_

_I know, Old Man. Doesn't mean I have to right now."_

**_"You've never been one ta procrastinate things, King."_**

_I'm in the middle of something here._

**_"No shit. That's why the old man said 'eventually', not 'now'."_**

_Whatever. I'll do it once we get this whole thing sorted out._

_"The sooner you meditate the sooner your emotions will settle."_

_Yeah. I'll get to it eventually._

I could practically sense Zangetsu rolling his eyes in my inner world, but my mental conversation came to an end as something brushed against the edge of my senses. Frowning, I looked around. Gildarts noticed immediately; he'd been watching me the entire time, most likely still waiting for an explanation on my insane power level.

Really, I'd been surprised that he was able to keep up with me as well as he had. Clearly, Gildarts' reputation was accurate, and while his raw power didn't come close to matching mine, the ease and skill with which he used his attacks made him a dangerous opponent. Normally, my speed would instantly overwhelm his, but in close range combat his fighting style had been enough to compensate to the point where Gildarts could hit me with his Crash Magic, which seemed like it was _designed_ to break through Hierro and completely disregard Blut Vene.

Now that I thought about it—and with plenty of commentary from Zangetsu—I realized that I had done exactly what Zaraki did against his opponents. I was limiting myself without consciously realizing that I was doing so.

And it wasn't because I wanted a good fight—as entertaining as a challenging opponent was, battle had lost its luster for me after the war. Rather, as I was beginning to realize from the unfamiliar feeling in my gut, I was afraid.

It sounded stupid. Idiotic, even. If I was so powerful, why would I be afraid?

_"Because you are afraid of another opponent that needs you to have that kind of power. You fear another Aizen, and you fear inadvertently creating another monster with your own power and abilities."_

**_"Yer afraid, King."_**

I stopped in my tracks, my blood turning to ice for just a fraction of a second before I got myself under control. In an instant I had reigned in my Reiatsu—hopefully before anyone noticed—and tried to draw my focus away from the tightly bound maelstrom of emotions that swirled in that damn box.

I could all but feel the lock slowly breaking, and it wouldn't be too long until it broke altogether. Fairy Tail was a nice distraction from what I'd gone through, but memories of the war refused to leave me and now that another disaster loomed on the horizon I could feel them resurfacing, filling me with a sense of dread for what was to come, reminding me of how everyone I knew died painful, horrible deaths, how I'd had my life ripped away from me and I couldn't handle that happening again, I'd break, I'd tear the heavens apart—

**_"KING!"_**

I gasped, putting one hand to my face and realizing with a start that I had been sweating and forgetting to breathe. There was some kind of pressure on my chest, one that I wasn't used to, but it gradually lessened until I could barely feel it anymore. The box was open in my mind and I forced it shut, bolting it shut and throwing it into a deep corner of my mind until I was ready to take it out again.

"Ichigo, are you okay?" Lucy asked, looking at me with worry in her eyes.

_Dammit. I need to pull myself together._

**_"That was one of yer worse episodes."_**

_Yeah. The timing's pretty terrible._

"I'm fine," I said, straightening and letting my hand fall back to my side. "it's nothing to worry about, really."

Gildarts gave me an odd look, and I tried to reassure him with a gesture that my condition had nothing to do with my fight with him.

"Are you sure?" Wendy asked, tentative. She wasn't afraid of me, but she was definitely wary, since we'd never talked much and I didn't exactly radiate friendliness. "I'm a healer. If you're injured, I can—"

"I'm fine," I growled, cutting Wendy off. She flinched, unused to my harsh tone of voice, and I felt a small flare of guilt inside that I quickly pushed down. "Let's just keep moving."

That feeling that had brushed at the edges of my senses earlier came back, even stronger, and I realized what it was: recognition. I blinked, wondering what that meant, before it hit me that _that feeling_ was likely to be whatever magic the Edolas Fairy Tail guild used; most likely, that magic was similar in some ways to the magic the Earthland Fairy Tail guild used, focused in objects instead of people.

"I found them," I said, turning in the direction that faint magic was emanating from.

"Really?" Natsu asked, turning to face me so quickly I was surprised he didn't get whiplash. I raised an eyebrow at him, and then let my expression return to normal.

"Yeah. They're that way."

I pointed, and then let my hand drop back down again.

"We should stick together when we head to the guild," Mystogan said. "There's no telling how the Edolas counterparts of our guildmates will react."

"I wonder what I'm like," Gildarts mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I bet I'm handsome. And strong. And I bet I've got a lot of wome—"

"Now's not the time," I interrupted, trying to ignore the headache that had sprung up in the back of my mind. Having my Reiatsu surge in a place that I wasn't accustomed to yet had thrown my senses off balance yet again, and I was finding that pulling myself together was irritatingly difficult.

"I bet the Salamander's gonna be a wimp," Gajeel said, smirking.

"I doubt you'll be any better," I said, my tone flat. Gajeel scowled at me.

"You got a problem or somethin, Ichigo?"

"All things considered," I replied, my voice like ice, "yes."

A little bit of black bled into my eyes, but only Gajeel was paying attention. "Now stop being so difficult," I advised, "or you're going to get everyone in trouble."

Gajeel's scowl deepened, but he backed off, his gaze automatically becoming more wary than belligerent.

"Hey, guys?" Wendy said, looking around. "I don't see Natsu. Or Happy."

"Where could that fool have gotten off to now?" Carla asked, crossing her arms. "In all honesty that boy is utterly insane!"

**_"That's rich, all things considered. You've only got, what, two voices in yer head, King? That ain't that bad."_**

_Not the time, Zangetsu._

My headache was interfering with my ability to figure out where the hell Natsu had gone, and that made the situation all the more frustrating because I knew exactly why Natsu had left: he wanted to see the guild. I was stupid to point out where the guild was before coming up with a plan.

_"Natsu will be heading to where you pointed. Simply follow that line, and you will find him."_

_I can't leave everyone else behind for the sake of one dragon slayer._

"I knew he was going to do this," Gildarts said, shaking his head. "I should've been able to stop the kid before he took two steps, but I wasn't paying attention."

"Not much we can do now," I said. "If we hurry, we should be able to catch up to him before he gets himself in too much trouble."

Gajeel snickered and looked away, crossing his arms.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Carla asked, regarding me like she wasn't a fraction of my height.

After taking a second to check my thoughts to make sure I didn't say something I would regret, I spoke.

"Nothing. Let's go."

It was inevitable that I would pull away from the group. As my headache lessened, I found that I could sense things more and more clearly, until I was almost back to normal. The familiar feeling only increased the farther I went, until I was absolutely positive that the Fairy Tail guild was what I had been sensing.

When the guildhall finally came into view, all I could do was stare for a few seconds at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

The Fairy Tail guildhall was a plant. A giant, green, winding plant that sprouted out of the ground like it had been there all along. The only thing that identified it as the Fairy Tail guild was the orange banner stretched between two limbs, and the wooden door at the base clearly indicated where the entrance was.

The door was open; it had been thrown wide, from what I could tell. I wasn't sure if I should enter; I had no information besides what Mystogan had given me on the Fairy Tail guild, and therefore had no idea what to expect. Usually, I would do some kind of scouting before even considering someone to be a candidate for an ally, much less an approachable area.

A sudden cry, however, snapped me out of my hesitation.

"HELP!"

The voice was undoubtedly Natsu's, and I was moving before I even fully processed what he had said. In an instant, I was inside the strange guild, the wind created by my Flash Step whipping throughout the room.

When I took in the scene that greeted me, I couldn't help but sigh.

Really, Fairy Tail should have stopped surprising me by now.

* * *

_A/N This story is OFFICIALLY on hold now. No more updates for at least two months, maybe more. When I come back, however, things should be better._

_This **does not** mean that I want you guys to not review; in fact, any feedback would be fantastic, as well as any information on Edolas or things you want to see that you're worried I'll skip over entirely. I have a bad habit of missing small nuances in these kinds of stories . . . *grins sheepishly*_

_Let's see . . . oh, yes. Last chapter, Gildarts was that powerful because I wanted him to be. I also provided a little more explanation this chapter, which is hopefully enough to pacify all the people that didn't seem to like that. If you're still not happy, I've got three words: Get over it._

_Please don't review with just the words "please update" or "update soon" or anything like that. If you're willing to take the time to review, then just say your favorite part of the chapter or something, or what you want to see happen next, or any kind of prediction. Hell, even constructive criticism. For an example of what constructive criticism is _not_, just look at the lovely review of Guest Reviewer What Da Fuck._

**_Reviews (just for questions or reviews I found particularly amusing): _**

**_President Obama: _**_I'd hate to be so presumptuous, but you seem awfully similar to Bill Gates. But that might just be me. Nice review, it made me smile._

**_jeya . medoza:_**_ well, the chapter kind of answered all of your questions, I hope. _

**_It Pennywise: _**_I talked about the Gildarts/Ichigo power thing previously, and if you still don't get it, I'll explain. Much like Kenpachi, Ichigo has been subconsciously limiting his abilities. Not in a __major way, but enough to be noticeable in a fight against a strong opponent such as Gildarts. Also, Ichigo was in regular bankai, not his transcended state. Had he been taking the fight seriously (as in, kill-the-opponent seriously), Gildarts would have been dead in less than a minute. Since Ichigo wasn't taking the fight that seriously, it was more drawn-out. Finally, Gilarts was able to mostly keep up with Ichigo's natural speed due to his reflexes and the fact that he could compensate in close-range fighting because Ichigo wasn't really trying to hard with the swarming/overwhelming kinds of attacks. It was more a battle of power than anything else._

**_ZERO:_**_ Dude. Shut the hell up. I'll update when I want, and IT WAS POSTED IN MY FUCKIN PROFILE SO JUST READ THAT INSTEAD OF POSTING THAT REVIEW okay thank you. Honestly, if you have a question, it's probably in my profile, and if not, think about it in the comfort of your own mind._

**_What Da Fuck: _**_My characters, my rules. Also, see the review for **IT Pennywise**._

_That's all, and thank you to everyone who reviewed (there were so many of you)! I hope to hear from you all again, and even though I'll be gone for a while I promise that I'll be back! In the meantime, feel free to look at my other stories or favorites. There's quite a few decent time-travel bleach and Fairy Tail stories that caught my eyes, and one particular crossover that, if you haven't read it yet, you're really missing out. Either that, or you're blind._

_Until we meet again (in a few months or until I revise this chapter or something I've said in it),_

_-RoR_

_**Please review.**  
_

_**10-27-14: **did some minor edits with spelling/grammar. Shoutout to jcampbellohten for help with that!_


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